Portraits of Home: the family album

This project began as an assignment for my first photography student at the end of our first quarter; a documentation of the people, places and experiences that make us who we are. It brings into question the very essence of what home means to each of us, and explores the importance of family, history, tradition, and place in forming the foundations of our lives.

My family has always kept photo albums, on both sides. My mom and my grandma Marie together saved hundreds of photographs documenting their lives [the entire extended family's collections amount to possibly thousands of photos] and serves as an extensive documentation of their lives during the changing times in a small logging town in the heart of Washington. The photos from my dad's side of the family tell a different story: that of a never-stay-in-the-same-place family spread all over the States, who always made time to come together.

The following images are a selection of scans of photographs taken and saved by my mom, dad and grandmother Valeria (plus a few classics from my lifetime). It is intended as a portrait of home not only for me and my sister, but also our parents and extended family. This selection is the very beginning of a greater historical interest of mine: the extensive photographic documentation that exists of everyday people throughout the 20th Century, thanks to the increasing accessibility of film cameras as technology advanced, and people who have saved the photographs.

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The moment it all began. Olympia, Washington c. 2000

The Dalthorp family. American Midwest c. 1920