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Anonymous snapshot, courtesy Lorca Shepperd

Other People's Pictures, a documentary on snapshot collectors
March , 2006

Press release:
Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art will present the documentary film Other People’s Pictures on Thursday March 2nd at 7:00 pm at Intuit, 756 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago IL. Admission is $5. Running time is 55 minutes.

Produced in 2004, this documentary explores the interests and motivations of nine passionate collectors of snapshots. These individuals search for meaning in other people’s abandoned family photos. One collector looks for “banality of evil” snapshots: pictures of Nazis at home with their families. Another searches for rare images of people with Down Syndrome. Other collectors maybe are only interested in photographs taken on the beach or images of sailors’ latent homoeroticism. Collector Peter Cohen sums up why other people’s pictures are so engaging: “It’s the unfinished story – what happened just before? What happened just after?” An award-winner at many documentary film festivals, Other People’s Pictures showcases many remarkable snapshots that are being preserved by collectors from around the country.

Other People’s Pictures will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition Accidental Mysteries: Extraordinary Vernacular Photographs from the Collection of John and Teenuh Foster.