Press

THESE ANONYMOUS PHOTOS SHOW WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE DECADES A GO. When I was a child, every few months or so, my mom and dad would lug out the slide projector and we’d all sit around and reminisce about our family history through events we shared and that were recorded by my parents on slide film.

A SECRET HISTORY HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: A project collecting together thousands of photos from flea markets and auction sites offers touching glimpses into strangers’ lives, writes Fiona Macdonald.

LES NOUVEAUX ROMANS-PHOTOS : Arnaud Cathrine, Justine Lévy et The Anonymous Project
Histoire d’un livre. Les deux écrivains ont chacun pioché la matière de fictions familiales dans le fonds photographique The Anonymous Project. Belle expérience littéraire.

MIDCENTURY MEMEORIES: Anonymous photography project explores family life through amateur eyes. Rewind back to the midcentury, before the age of Instagram and Snapchat, where people were using 35mm cameras loaded with colour film to document both monumental and mundane moments in their lives.

WHY KODACHROME WAS THE INSTAGRAM OF ITS TIME. A photo shows two women sitting in someone's teal-colored living room, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and laughing uproariously at something off-camera.
It's not clear why, but they seem to be having a great time.
 
  

(French) "THE ANONYMOUS PROJECT", IMMERSION DANS UNE VIE QUOTIDIENNE SANS CLICHÉS. Une maison qui ne paie pas de mine, un peu en retrait sur un boulevard, abrite une exposition immersive et emballante des Rencontres d’Arles : une machine à remonter le temps, un décor reconstitué des années 1950 à 1980 truffé d’écrans qui diffusent des images de la période…

STOLEN KISSES AND LOST CHILDHOODS: HOW ONE MAN SAVED 700,000 PRIVATE PHOTOS. Anonymous snapshots rescued from the scrap-heap have lost all context. So why, asks Gaby Wood, do they hold such an emotional charge?

MOMENTS BIG AND SMALL IN VINTAGE PHOTOS. Lee Shulman, an English-born filmmaker based in Paris, decided to buy a random bundle of slides from eBay on a lark. Almost instantly upon examining the contents, “I felt very close to the image,” he said, “and close to the emotions that were transferred.”

WHAT MAKES A HOUSE A HOME? By inserting found photographs throughout each room in a small house in Southern France, The Anonymous Project creates playful installations that illustrate the lasting importance of amateur photography.

HEARTWARMING ANONYMOUS IMAGES OF LIFE IN THE 1940S-70S. It all began with an eBay purchase. Filmmaker Lee Shulman takes readers on a journey into the past with over 300 anonymous images taken between the 1940s and ’70s in his new photobook Midcentury Memories. The Anonymous Project.

COLOURFUL LIVES: SALVAGED SNAPSHOTS FROM THE KODACHROME ERA. The Anonymous Project’s mission is to rescue collections of slide photography from flea markets and house clearances to digitise them before the chemicals degrade. Here is a selection of their favourite salvaged transparencies – photographers and (almost) all subjects unknown

PORTRAIT OF HUMANITY: THE ANONYMOUS PROJECT IS RESTORING OUR COLLECTIVE MEMORY, ONE COLOUR SLIDE AT A TIME. When filmmaker Lee Shulman bought a box of vintage slides from Ebay, he was hoping for some blurry snaps to flick through on a Sunday afternoon, and maybe a picture or two to keep. But when they arrived, ‘I nearly fell off my seat.’  

IN MEMORY OF SLIDE SHOWS. The Anonymous Project are building up a moving archibve of 20th century venacular photography.

(FRENCH) PHOTO / DIAPOSITIVES, VESTIGES VINTAGE. The Anonymous Project expose à Paris son fonds de diapos du monde entier vouées à la benne, collectées comme autant d’archives intimes et de trésors mélancoliques.

BEFORE THERE WERE INSTAGRAM FILTERS, THERE WAS KODACHROME. In one memorable Mad Men scene, Don Draper pitches Kodak’s new color slide projector wheel as “not a spaceship, but a time machine.”

INSIDE THE FASCINATING ARCHIVE OF ANONYMOUS VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHIC SLIDES FROM 1930S TO THE 80S THAT A FILMMAKER BOUGHT ON EBAY. Though it is almost impossible to pick even a few favorites out of the more than half a million photographic slides owned by The Anonymous Project, founder Lee Shulman can think of a couple off the top of his head. One is a picture of a couple on roller skates in 1984, likely in California.