Ransom Riggs
Talking Pictures: Hide This Please
by Ransom Riggs - October 13, 2010 - 12:47 PM

I started collecting found snapshots a few years ago — at swap meets, antique shops and the like — but the thing that got me started wasn’t the photos themselves so much as the writing I’d sometimes find on the backs. When you’re looking through bins of unsorted photos, every thirtieth one or so will have some writing on it. It’s generally just identifying information (“me and Jerry at the Grand Canyon, 1947″), but sometimes you find really funny, revealing, emotional, surprising notes that transform the photo from something usual and kind of anonymous into something amazing and really personal. I’m putting together a book of my finds called Voices from the Other Side, but I figured I’d share some with our readers as well just to see what everyone thinks. (I posted another small batch — of wartime photos — back on July 4th.)

One thing I’ve found a lot of is photos where people have written deprecating things — usually about themselves — on the back. “I look so fat here!” is a shockingly common theme; I guess people were as concerned with their weight (and as self-conscious about pictures of themselves) fifty and sixty years ago as they are today. I want to share some of these with you, not so much to laugh at (although they are funny) but to demonstrate how little our attitudes about ourselves have changed over the years. I’ll start with one that I think pretty much sums it up:

When there are two people in the frame, like in the picture above, you have to wonder which of them hated the picture enough to write on it.


My shadow isn’t too bad to look at. Ha!


These are hideous of Emmet & me. Wish I were as photogenic as the dog.

Why doesn’t anyone call their nose a “beak” anymore? I’m going to bring it back.

I’m not as fat as I look here, it’s the terrycloth pajamas over my bathing skirt plus wind.
(I love the background here — back the 20s there was really only one kind of car you could buy, so that’s what everyone had!)

A good ad for Ovaltine. See how fat I’m getting?

(Ovaltine ads, you may or may not remember, featured a lot of chubby-cute children. And just for the record, I don’t see at all how fat she’s getting. These people would’ve been shocked — shocked! — to see the size of our waistlines today.)

I just have to quit eating and work hard.

Sheesh … ladies, you look fine!

I can’t imagine ol “pigs guts” wrote this on his own picture — but you never know. Then again, I have a feeling that the lady in the next picture did write her caption.

There are also lots of pictures out there of people eating, with things like “me with my mouth full — AS USUAL” written on the back. Like this one:

This one’s so sad and plain it’s almost heartbreaking:

Don’t feel bad, lady — passport photos never look good:

I can’t tell if this guy is making a face or he really looks like this:

Some people just have trouble posing:

We’ve all felt this way from time to time:

This last one is amazing — I’ve never seen anyone go to such lengths to hide their face in a picture.

FRONT: I came out terrible so I put ink on my face and scratched it off.

BACK: This one came out terrible don’t show it to any one.

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Comments (64)

  1. This was so much fun to read!!! Thanks for the post!

    posted by Ophelia on 10-13-2010 at 1:01 pm

  2. Ransom – great article! It is always fun and interesting to see these pictures. The more things change, the more they stay the same…

    posted by BoneDaddy on 10-13-2010 at 1:06 pm

  3. If not for the wife, I would spend hours poring over bins of old photos at the Brooklyn Flea. Love finding treasures like these.

    posted by Matt on 10-13-2010 at 1:14 pm

  4. It’s funny to see that even back then women were also worried about looking fat. :)

    posted by Eda on 10-13-2010 at 1:18 pm

  5. Thanks for sharing! Very cool.

    However, all the ones that say ‘don’t show to anyone’…did they not have trash cans ‘back in the day’?? :)

    posted by Jill on 10-13-2010 at 1:22 pm

  6. it’s so all sad.

    posted by leftfoot on 10-13-2010 at 1:23 pm

  7. What fun! I had a great time reviewing all these pictures. What a fun hobby. Feel sorry for anyone who accompanies me the next time I go antiquing!

    posted by Liza on 10-13-2010 at 1:25 pm

  8. Loved this! Old photos are the best!

    posted by Sandimonium on 10-13-2010 at 1:25 pm

  9. These are so excellent. Ransom, please keep us updated on the publication date for your book!

    posted by KittyMarie on 10-13-2010 at 1:30 pm

  10. One thing that fascinates me is the beautiful handwriting people had back then.

    posted by DJ Dave on 10-13-2010 at 1:31 pm

  11. Fantastic. The only thing, I feel like that one clearly skinny woman who wrote “Look how fat I’m getting” might just mean she’s pregnant and perhaps starting to show.

    posted by Samantha on 10-13-2010 at 1:33 pm

  12. I love the handwriting too, my nan still writes like that.

    posted by Sam on 10-13-2010 at 1:39 pm

  13. Really old pictures have such an awesome nostalgia when you look at them. Some really cool shots in there!

    posted by Niko on 10-13-2010 at 1:43 pm

  14. Very interesting. It is also sad that we are all so worried about appearance.

    posted by Shaydie on 10-13-2010 at 1:49 pm

  15. Jim Rome calls the nose “a beak” all the time.

    posted by Anthony Aspan on 10-13-2010 at 2:12 pm

  16. I figure it was no different back then than it is now,that there’s nothing actually wrong with the pics, but the self-depreciation is one of two things. Either the person in the pic wants to share it, but doesn’t want to feel as if they are bragging or the person is fishing for compliments. If you really hate a picture, you throw it away, not keep it, and definitely not share it. If you want to share it and don’t want to seem boastful or self-absorbed or want to make sure that people say something nice about you, you just scrawl a modest little caption on it. “I look so fat in this one” really means, I like this one and still want you to see it and/or ” Please tell me I’m not fat and that I look pretty.”.

    posted by Melissa on 10-13-2010 at 2:27 pm

  17. When I was in the 2nd grade a photographer came in for a group shot and I put my head down and covered my head with my arms. My teacher was angry (but then again, she was ALWAYS angry) and I was sent to the cloakroom. A few months later my neighbor came over to show my mother my picture, zoomed in, in the yearbook and they laughed their heads off. I wish I knew where to find a 1972 yearbook from a private school that no longer exists, I’d love a copy.

    posted by Donna on 10-13-2010 at 2:28 pm

  18. It’s the photo version of when someone compliments your new dress saying “Oh, this old thing!”.

    posted by Melissa on 10-13-2010 at 2:28 pm

  19. It’s just one of our social graces that even when we look fabulous, we aren’t supposed to run around saying so. We can’t send someone a picture captioned “Me in my swimsuit. I totally look sexy.”, but for some reason, it’s okay to pose for and send the same shot as long as it’s got at least a feigned modest caption on the back or something wildly complimentary about everyone else in the pic but ourselves.

    posted by Melissa on 10-13-2010 at 2:33 pm

  20. It’s amazing how the definition of “fat” has transformed over the years. I’m currently reading a book that was written in the ’70s. There is a line that says, “This person was fat, ENORMOUS even. She had to be almost 200 pounds.”

    Since when does “almost 200 pounds” constitue ENORMOUS?

    posted by Pearl on 10-13-2010 at 2:34 pm

  21. The more things change… Amazing how so many women want(ed) to be pinups.

    And the script is beautiful. It’s not taught in public schools anymore, but it’s occasionally possible to get a copy of the Spencerian System, and I highly recommend that. I write all my notes in script for school. Not so prettily as these people, though!

    posted by Penny on 10-13-2010 at 2:43 pm

  22. I enjoyed the pictures! But isn’t it sad that all these people’s families threw these away/gave to flea markets/etc. My husband’s mother was going to throw out family pictures dating back to the 1800s, but he was able to rescue them and get her to write on the backs who all are in the pictures. I hope to someday digitize them.

    posted by Border Bonnie on 10-13-2010 at 2:57 pm

  23. Loved this post – I’ve always been fascinated with old photos, and the captions make the people in them seem so much more real!

    posted by R on 10-13-2010 at 3:05 pm

  24. Super cool. Old photos are fascinating.
    Thanks for sharing.

    Additional thought…If I felt that way about my photo, I sure wouldn’t admit it in writing no less.

    posted by tommieg on 10-13-2010 at 3:26 pm

  25. amazing pictures. the one who simply states “Well, this is me” is very tragic! waht kind of self-image did she have? I want to reach out and give her a hug! can’t wait for the book, please post something when it is ready to buy, I will be first in line! thanks again

    posted by Megaroo on 10-13-2010 at 3:36 pm

  26. “back the 20s there was really only one kind of car you could buy, so that’s what everyone had” – I wouldn’t be worthy of Mental Floss if I didn’t point out that besides Ford, 40 other companies were making cars by 1929, including Olds.

    (And that beach woman was cute, BTW!)

    posted by Mr. Retro on 10-13-2010 at 3:46 pm

  27. I loved it, thanks. Re: everyone having the same car in the 20′s, I wonder how they told their cars apart and how many times people tried to start the wrong car.

    posted by Sarah in CA on 10-13-2010 at 4:19 pm

  28. This is a fine collection. Excellent idea for connections.

    posted by Anyjazz on 10-13-2010 at 5:01 pm

  29. Is it just me, or does it appear the people in the last photo are on top of a roof of a building? That certainly looks like a chimney behind the person with the scratched-off face. Great place to take the kids and their bikes!

    posted by rev on 10-13-2010 at 5:29 pm

  30. “Don’t want my picture taken now!” with the woman cradling her face in her hands is lovely.

    posted by Suze on 10-13-2010 at 7:46 pm

  31. Some of these are so similar to modern day facebook comments…

    posted by Alex on 10-13-2010 at 8:46 pm

  32. It’s actually quite a shame this has been lost. In forty to fifty years time all out musing will be gone, as they are all stored digitally.

    posted by Alex on 10-13-2010 at 8:47 pm

  33. I have a picture of my great-grandmother where she scratched out her face because she didn’t like her smile. It must run in the family–I put medical adhesive tape over my picture in my freshman high school yearbook. It is really rather sad.

    posted by Susan on 10-13-2010 at 9:06 pm

  34. I think the Ovaltine lady was bragging about putting on healthy weight, something about the tone and her appearance makes me think so.

    posted by Erika on 10-13-2010 at 11:21 pm

  35. Thought the same thing Alex! I was thinking that I have an old shoebox of pictures…my cousin used to live far away so we would send each other old pics that we found and write funny captions or memories on the back. The last one she sent was a picture of us playing dress up circa 78 and she wrote on the back, “I think I was mad at you that day because you got to wear MomMom’s fancy hat.” Now we do this on facebook…and while it’s still fun, I always like to pull these pictures out from time to time and laugh.

    posted by knjsmama on 10-14-2010 at 12:36 am

  36. The more things change…I still rarely put a picture of myself up on Facebook because I just don’t feel they’re “good”. Nice to know so many others feel the same way!

    Great pictures. I do love the woman covering her face! It’s simply priceless.

    posted by shirley feeney on 10-14-2010 at 2:01 am

  37. The 3rd pic ending w/ “Ha Ha” got me thinking, how funny/spooky would it be to read (in original script) LOL on the back of one of these!

    posted by reyus on 10-14-2010 at 5:24 am

  38. I’ve been going through old family photos, and while many of them have no information (making for frustration) some have wonderful captions – my grandmother wrote “Me in my new coat – Dad calls this one Wee Dumpy” and my father holding a doll with the caption “Proud Papa holding Susie” so I was named after a Kewpie doll?

    posted by Susan on 10-14-2010 at 8:46 am

  39. These are great! I’d love to see more of them!

    posted by Andrea on 10-14-2010 at 9:27 am

  40. This makes me want to go through all my grandparents photos. I love posts like this, more please!

    posted by Christina on 10-14-2010 at 10:03 am

  41. I really wonder where the one with the 147 on the back was taken. It looks like my great aunt pre-stroke and my grandmother standing in my Great Great Grandmothers Garden in Mass.

    I wish I could see more of that picture…

    posted by MetalRose on 10-14-2010 at 10:47 am

  42. Fab photos – I have a similar passion for buying second hand books that people have written messages in :)

    posted by Lindy on 10-14-2010 at 11:03 am

  43. These were such fun to see. Does anyone else think the woman and kids in the last one are standing on a roof? Isn’t that a chimney and a standing-seam metal roof??

    posted by sandi on 10-14-2010 at 11:10 am

  44. These are fantastic. I can just imagine the folks writing that down. Decades later, they were old and gentle, but they still held on to that don’t-look-at-fat-old-me spirit. Gotta love it!

    posted by DanielKBrantley on 10-14-2010 at 1:30 pm

  45. It’s worth remembering that it was relatively expensive to buy and process film and print photos, so people weren’t so quick to just throw out ones that weren’t flattering or otherwise “perfect”. And they didn’t take lots of shots of a given scene, like we do today, with the goal of keeping only the best; the one of Uncle Joe with his eyes closed, for instance, might be the only one they had of Uncle Joe.

    posted by Betsy on 10-14-2010 at 2:19 pm

  46. My grandmother used to routinely cut her face/head out of pictures if she didn’t like how she looked (which was most of the time).

    posted by Erinn on 10-14-2010 at 4:00 pm

  47. I think you are being conservative in your “every 13th or so”. The time it took you to sort through,literally, thousands of snapshots should also be mentioned. One “attitude change” over the years,(since we’ve become so pc),is the use of the term “idiot” but since I still have old school sensibilities I found this one hysterically funny. Can’t wait for the book. Good work.

    posted by Leonard Lightfoot on 10-14-2010 at 9:07 pm

  48. Thanks for the comment, leonard! You’re the man. And yeah, you’re right. It takes a pretty incredible amount of searching to find a photo with a caption that’s more than just “aunt mary,” and a great deal of searching beyond that to find a caption that’s funny/strange/interesting/revealing.

    posted by Ransom Riggs on 10-14-2010 at 9:22 pm

  49. My friend just sent me this link, and I’m so glad. I became quite obsessed with gathering old photos when I was visiting Berlin. (There were boxes-full at ever flea market.) My favourite was one of a very jolly-looking fellow in the middle of a happy group on a country road. He had his arms outstretched and the caption on the back read, “Bomberg embraces the whole world!” Lovely.

    The convenience of digital media is nice (and cheap) but you can’t replace the feel of a photo in your hand, turning it over to find some random message. Notes from the past and all that.

    g.

    posted by g. on 10-15-2010 at 1:13 pm

  50. These remind me a lot of my late wife. She was very pretty, but hated to have her picture taken. She always felt that she was ugly, which is far from the truth. I have very few pictures of her, not even a wallet photo. :(

    posted by Mikey on 10-16-2010 at 2:45 pm

  51. Hi,
    I have collected some lost photos in Senegal myself, even if I have been so stupid to throw them away after I thought I could not do much with them…
    I think your collection is truly extraordinary, beautiful!!

    I was wandering if I could buy one of these photographs?
    If this is a possibility, could you please email me at info@mimimollica.com?
    Thanks

    posted by Mimi on 10-19-2010 at 3:40 am

  52. wonderful

    posted by MM on 10-19-2010 at 1:22 pm

  53. @reyus – I have school photos from the late ’60′s that have LOL written on the back. Of course, then it meant “lots of luck.” I was very confused when I joined facebook and found “LOL!” sprinkled in places where “lots of luck” didn’t fit. Also, my mother has an autograph book from the 1930′s where her friends signed with extras like RMA (Remember Me Always) and I think LOL, too. I don’t think exchanging school pictures was done back then, but autograph books and school yearbooks probably abound with such things.

    posted by J on 10-22-2010 at 2:22 pm

  54. These are so fascinating and I think your idea to compile them is amazing. I can’t tell you how much I love your title. So clever! One of those things I wish I’d thought of. I enjoyed these so much and agree with the commenters above who want info on the release date of your book!

    posted by susan on 10-23-2010 at 9:13 pm

  55. You have inspired me to a new hobby. Photos don’t take up much space and even if you don’t know the people, the clothes, the cars and the captions are like a time machine. Keep ‘em coming — clearly we all love this column!

    posted by Siobhan on 10-27-2010 at 6:14 pm

  56. How has no one commented about “you would squint your eyes”. Is she an amputee?

    posted by holzblz on 11-4-2010 at 12:58 pm

  57. holzblz – if you look closely at the photo, she’s standing with her left foot kind of hooked around her right ankle.

    posted by Liss on 11-12-2010 at 4:47 am

  58. History can seem quite distant and impersonal sometimes, so for me, it’s wonderful to see not only the photographs but the witty little quips that either the subject or someone else personally involved ascribed to them. It brings them (and the by-gone times) a bit closer to home.

    posted by MS on 11-13-2010 at 1:06 am

  59. these are amazing. thank you for the post. i love how you write. it was like i was poring over an interesting photo album with a friend.

    posted by ydnaum on 11-16-2010 at 7:09 am

  60. On the one”I came out terrible so I put ink on my face and scratched it off.” Are they on a rooftop? Cause I don’t think it is safe to be riding his little tricycle up there.

    posted by Jesse W. on 12-21-2010 at 11:22 am

  61. “Shoveling it in” really makes me laugh…
    I showed one of my younger students just now and had a moment of, “you don’t do this anymore because it’s all digital…”
    And the script is so, SO beautiful and I am so glad I saved my Grandmother’s letters. Thank you, Ransom!

    posted by Helenann on 12-21-2010 at 3:33 pm

  62. Really well done,
    I look forward to the book.
    I love looking through all of my Dad’s old photos,I’ve saved them in his old cigar boxes,with very few comments on the back of them it makes me wish I’d asked him more questions about them.
    I wonder where all of my old photos (and there are many!) will end up one day…

    posted by Cathy on 1-6-2011 at 10:04 pm

  63. Why can’t we love ourselves?

    posted by jj on 7-3-2011 at 2:25 pm

  64. Hysterical and poignant and sad all at once.

    posted by PB Rippey on 9-17-2011 at 2:13 am

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