forgotten stuff

i don't know what it is, but i am obsessed with old things. maybe it's part of realising we're mortal and life is finite {i'm not even 30 yet, but i think about this stuff a lot, jars of clay etc.}. i wonder what people 100 years from now will think about our photographs, clothing and 'high tech' gadgets like iphones and gps.

so you can understand why i love the hospice shop on louis botha in joburg. you have to sift through a lot of junk, but you can find real gems. like i found an old wooden piece scrabble set from 1948 for 20 bucks. 20 bucks!! it belonged to a boy named jonathan {at one time} who wrote his name in blue ink on the box in a juvenile writing. and, today, i came across some incredible old pictures, some from over 100 years ago. some people may find it macabre, but i think it's a bit magical. who were these people? did these "thrown away" possessions mean something? were they very sentimental? i'll never know. but i imagine the walls of the homes these pictures were hung on. if perhaps the man in a portrait was killed in WWI, or maybe survived a p.o.w camp. 

there are secret stories here.

so here are my amazing finds...a set of small bird ornaments {R5 for both}, two portraits from 1916 from a studio called 'the arcade', an old negative taken from someone's beach holiday {keen to get it developed}, and three small photos -- two from san sebastian and the third taken of a harbour in 1903.