Before the instant gratification of deleting unwanted photos and the immediacy with which you can post desirable shots on social networks, people had to wait for their film to be developed in order to see what they had actually taken.
Sometimes their photos turned out to be awkward, unprofessional or even offensive and were left behind. (Also, if the negatives were considered risqué, they wouldn’t be developed.)
Michael Lesy, a graduate student in the 1970s, had photography as his main interest. His friend was a motorcycle driver who took film from drugstores to a factory.
‘What we used to do for a while… is raid the dumpsters,’ Lesy told DailyMail.com.
He amassed an archive during a 1971 summer in San Francisco.
“Every week, for the four weeks of summer, we took home any snapshots that we found,” he said. They were in the trash because the machines that made them—duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates—made them faster than the people on the line could stop them,’ he wrote in his new book, Snapshots 1971-77.
“We estimated that we took home seven thousand per week. I would spend hours looking through them. Some I kept, most I threw away.
Lesy was back in Cleveland years later and another opportunity presented itself for photos. He met a friend who knew a drugstore owner who was unsure what to do with the photos people didn’t pick up.
Lesy waited 50 year to publish his snapshot collection. “I always had it together. He said that this book could be made at any moment, but that there was a high legal risk.
He wrote, “Fifty years later, nothing and everything has changed.”
Michael Lesy stayed with a friend in 1971. He was a motorcycle courier boy who transported film from drugstores and to a factory. We took home all the snapshots we could find every week for four weeks. They were in the trash because the machines that made them—duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates—made them faster than the people on the line could stop them,’ he wrote in his new book, Snapshots 1971-77. The man’s holster, as well as his gun, are both noted by Lesy in the above image. This suggests that he was probably a detective. DailyMail.com’s Lesy said that he recommends looking beneath the surface.
Lesy estimated that Lesy took home about 7,000 images per week. I spent days looking through them. Some I kept; most I threw out,’ he wrote in Snapshots 1971-77. He took hundreds of photos with him when he returned to Wisconsin to study at graduate school. DailyMail.com he said that he was very selective when editing. ‘I understood them as forming an archive—an archive of the present,’ he wrote in his new book. Above, Lesy and a married couple. Note the groom’s foxy smile.
Instead of using social media platforms to share vacation photos, albums were used to store them. Lesy noticed the family’s body posture in the photo above. “The boy is not having any of this,” he said, adding that his mom still links his arm with his. The daughter is standing up and leans against her father. Snapshots 1971-77, he wrote: “I realized something important: The people who made the photos were insiders, and not outsiders.” I also understood that the people behind my camera took photos of me, even though they weren’t intended to.
Lesy said, “It’s almost like a Madonna, I thought,” about the above photo of a young mother holding her baby. He was able to see the lives of his fellow citizens through the snapshots he found, whether they were duplicates or never picked up. “Looking through the snapshots fresh from the trash was like being blasted with a firehose full of information, soaking and pinned to a wall by it. It was intimate, domestic, close-up information that I could never have known otherwise,’ he wrote in Snapshots 1971-77
Lesy stated that his father’s family was not from Warsaw.
‘In 1921, my family immigrated to America. They settled in Cleveland. After World War II began in Poland, the SS forced all the residents of my father’s village into the town’s large wooden synagogue. They first forced them to take down the synagogue’s Creation frescoes using their fingernails. They locked the doors and set fire to everyone.
His parents, who had been married for 60 years each, waited until the war ended to have a child.
DailyMail.com was told by him that after the war, there had been an effort to capture humanity. He said, “It was using cameras to bear witness.”
During the Great Depression, the US government paid photographers for photos of people. This program became known as Farm Security Administration. The government wanted to gain support for the New Deal spending and revive the farm economy. Lesy compared the portrait of the American people who emerged to the Great Pyramids and the Pantheon. DailyMail.com’s Lesy said that it was a collective effort to pay tribute to existence.
Lesy was also inspired to use Farm Security Administration images by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Henri Cartier-Bresson was a famous photographer who is known for the decisive moment’. He also helped create Magnum and the important 1955 Family of Man exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art.
He said, “I was carrying them in my head.”
He was the only child of Jewish immigrants. He was going to graduate school to study American history. He stated that the Holocaust smoke was still in the air.
In 1971, he visited Berkeley to see his friend, who was a delivery worker.
‘Looking through the snapshots, fresh from the trash, was like being blasted by a firehose of information, soaked and pinned to the wall by it,’ he wrote in Snapshots 1971-77, which is published by Blast Books.
“It was intimate, intimate, and close-up information that was not available to me in any other way.”
Above, three well-dressed men attending a party. Lesy noticed the dignity and formality in the image. After spending a summer in San Francisco, Lesy took hundreds more photos and returned to Wisconsin for graduate school. Paul Vanderbilt was an archivist and photographer that he met while studying American History. Vanderbilt told him of a Black River Falls archive. It contained photographs taken by Charles Van Schaick. This was Lesy’s dissertation that would become his first book, Wisconsin Death Trip. His 1973 book, Wisconsin Death Trip, was a controversial one.
Lesy said that the above photograph of a man smoking pot in front the U.S. Capitol is a protest photo. It’s a rebellious photo. The United States was still involved in Vietnam War. In 1971, trials of those who were involved in the 1968 My Lai Massacre, the shocking 1969 murders by Manson’s followers of Sharon Tate and other victims were ongoing.
‘Every picture has a backstory – has a surface and a depth,’ Lesy said about the snapshots. He pointed out the written reminders on the chalkboard behind the nun in the above image. Henri Cartier-Bresson is a famous photographer, known for his ‘decisive moment’. He also inspired Lesy to take photographs during the Great Depression of 1930s. Magnum was also founded by him. Magnum also had an important 1955 Family of Man exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. DailyMail.com he said that he was carrying those thoughts in his head.
Lesy said some of the images in this collection were offensive. He said that sometimes negatives were refused to be printed by Fotomats or other businesses when they were taken to a drugstore. He said that the image above is sweet, loving, affectionate, and erotic. He noted that it seems she created mise en scene and all that was missing was a bear skin rug
DailyMail.com was informed by Lesy that these photographs were a truer witness’ than the Farm Security Administration photos of the country. He also shared details about his fellow citizens.
1971 was still a time when the United States was involved in the Vietnam War. The trials of those who were involved with the 1968 My Lai Massacre, the shocking 1969 murders, of Sharon Tate (who was pregnant) and other victims of Manson’s followers were ongoing.
After spending the summer in San Francisco Lesy took photos and returned to Wisconsin for graduate school. Paul Vanderbilt was an archivist and photographer that he met while studying American History. Vanderbilt told him of a Black River Falls archive. It also contained images taken Charles Van Schaick, photographer.
This was Lesy’s dissertation. It would become his first book, Wisconsin Death Trip. They were divided when he presented it his dissertation committee. His 1973 book, he stated, was very controversial.
Wisconsin Death Trip is now a seminal book and a cult-classic. A documentary based on the book, was released in 1999.
In the late 1970s Lesy was in Cleveland again and a friend, who was then an attorney, had a client who owned his own drugstore. Lesy explained that people sometimes forget to pick their photos up or don’t want the images anymore. Unclaimed photos were eventually thrown away.
Lesy, who has been looking at photographs for decades and has written several books, said snapshots are often dismissed as ‘trash or trivia,’ but he pointed out that ‘every picture has a backstory – has a surface and a depth. If you pause for a moment, you will see more.
‘Look beneath the surface… that is what this book insists upon.’
Photography has seen many changes since the advent of smartphones with cameras and other technology. Lesy mentioned that in the past, families would sit down with an album to talk about the past and their photographs. He explained that a child could ask a parent about the identity of someone in a photo. ‘What they leave out is often as important as what they leave in; what they emphasize and what they minimize can be equally revealing,’ he wrote in his new book, Snapshots 1971-77, about the images. Above, children wearing pirate hats at their birthday party
Lesy said that the above photo reminded him of Goodfellas from 1990. He wondered who took the picture and if law enforcement was involved. DailyMail.com’s Lesy said that he was a self-taught photographer. Many people were using cameras while he was studying at Columbia. It was everywhere. He carried a 35mm, single-lens reflex camera and aspired to be a documentary photographer. Lesy has written 13 books. Some of these books are based upon archival photography such as Wisconsin Death Trip.
Lesy was visiting Cleveland in the late 1970s and another opportunity presented itself to take photos. He met a friend who knew a drugstore owner who was unsure what to do with the photos people didn’t pick up. After waiting several weeks for customers to pick up the photos, Cleveland drugstores threw away any unclaimed snapshots. Snapshots 1971-77, he wrote that he never found out whether the drugstores had a time limit. ‘I suspect that when they ran out of space to keep them behind the front counter, they threw the pictures into a bag and—once the bag was full—threw the bag away.’ Above, Lesy, a’very trendy’ woman.
Above, a Memorial Day celebration, Lesy stated. He wrote that he saw the photos through the eyes of an outsider such as himself. The snapshots looked in four directions simultaneously: out at the subject and back at the photographer. Inwardly at their assumptions and beliefs. Finally, out, beyond, at the world in the which they believed they lived.
Lesy stated that he always had it all together. “This book could have been written at any time.” However, he pointed out that there was a greater legal risk if the book was published before now. He stated that “Times change everything.” Above is the cover of his book. Lesy explained that his book Wisconsin Death Trip was a success and he began writing more books. “For twenty years, I traveled the United States giving lectures. Each lecture was illustrated with hundreds upon hundreds of archival photos. I don’t recall when I made color slides from the San Francisco snapshots that I found. He wrote Snapshots 1971-77 that he would show them to people every now and again during my travels. ‘The purpose of those slide shows—and now the purpose of this book—was to show images whose meanings appear obvious, but which are riddles with more than one answer’