Talking Picture Postcards Personal Challenge

Today I’m launching what I hope will become a challenging personal project, telling short stories from my experiences and travels by assembling just a handful of photographs and a few sound clips to tell short stories.

I’m calling them Talking Picture Postcards, and hope to write them fairly often and mail the multimedia shows on this blog.



“ Dear Mom, went camping in Everglades NP, found great Osprey nest with two chicks ... kayaking on Florida Bay at sunset another family squawked at me. Otherwise very quiet and peaceful weekend. Promise to find real job soon. Tom”

I’m trying to think of each as a couple of lines on the back of a picture postcard, like those I’ve discovered while rummaging through dusty boxes in antique stores over the years. I love those hand colored black and white photos of some some obscure vacation spot from the 1930s or 40s, or even the sepia toned ones from the early teens.

After gleaning what I can from the photos, I turn the cards over to read the hand written lines, often family news, weather reports and plans about the future. I wonder how the parties to the correspondence lived their lives and what happened to them. Those few lines can be the best part, ease dropping on people who’ve long since passed away.

But here I am 50 or 100 years later, reading about how they enjoyed their visit last weekend or how they are sending money to their sister.

With a postcard you only have room for the briefest of reports, so my challenge will be to use 20 to 30 seconds to scribble my couple of lines on the back of these digital postcards.

If you're reading this 50 years from now after discovering a dust covered box of antique blogs, I hope it was a bargain.

Here's a link to more Miami multimedia photography Talking Picture Postcards.