I've loved this video since I fist watched it two years back. It feels like it could be the opening of a movie.

This reminds me of One Hour Photo. The monologue Robin Williams gives is so deep and moving to me: "I'm sure my customers never think about it, but these snapshots are their little stands against the flow of time. The shutter is clicked, the flash goes off and they've stopped time - just for the blink of an eye. And if these pictures have anything important to say to future generations, it's this: I was here. I existed. I was young, I was happy, and someone cared enough about me in this world to take my picture." - Robin Williams as Sy Parrish -

You inspired me to start collecting old photographs and post cards

Is amazing that some people have so interesting hobbies.

You're such a great author! You don't only write books, you also invite us into your adventures and unique hobbies and stories. I'm very thankful for that and I'm in love with those things, too :))♥

It's interesting to know that some people don't want to leave images behind after they pass. I would like to have a better understanding of that.

I have loved this video from the moment it was released, and I still frequently re-watch it. I know he has no reason to release videos anymore, but I wish he did. 2019 crew.

You have sparked an inspiration to look for old photos and make up characters like you did with Miss Peregrine's and Hollow City. :3 I know what I'm doing when the flea market is open. I'm not sure if people would be selling them, but it's worth a shot to look! :D

I Love your work.

I love old photographs, I mostly collect them from family members though, it feels more personal to me, like I'm a result of their life. I'm a painter so finding pictures like that are so inspiring! They enable me to create paintings with a really intense story behind them. This was such an inspiring video, thanks!

0:51 Jacob!

In one of the pictures on the back it says Jaleen March of 1959. That's my name.I thought it was odd since it's not a very common name.

i was brought here on suggestion by your good buddy, John Green. this video is truly incredible. one of the best ever uploaded here, perhaps.

It was bizarre to watch this video. I have been doing the same thing for years. I thought it was odd thing I did and kept it to myself but now I have been liberated.

An incredible short - it's been 13 years but I still come back to it.

I used to pursue the same hobby, the images had to say something to me, a few people standing in front of a house had no meaning to me.

This is an example of the sort of videos that should be on youtube.Ones that make us think about things we never thought we would.

I love your videos, films whatever you want to call them, they have a crazy vibe, always transport me to another universe ! Sir, my respect to you and your work !

Did anyone else watching this nearly cry/ cry while watching this? This video made me happy, sad, and intrigued.

This is why I have kept all the pictures that my Grandmother had. I love that even though all the people are long gone they are still alive in the photographs. They often smile and wink showing little secrets about themselves.

For some reason this really hits home for me. Recently, I found a whole stash of old family photos in my nans old victorian home dating back to the 1850s. I have every single one of the flimsy and brown images which depict so many lives and stories that you just can just read from their eyes. Oh also my grandmother has the same record player,

Everytime I get depressed or overwhelmed, I just rewatch this video. Puts a little perspective on my problems, and how everyone else has gone through life. It's not just about me.

I love looking at old photos :)

"Just smiling through, though its grim here" - amazing short film - i collect old photos to . Im a jeweller so i make lockets and other objects with the photos - I collect old photos for the same reason - a little snapshot of some ones life - a shadow - a whisper.

This is awesome! I have a shoebox full of old photographs & postcards some dated from the 1920's I bought at an estate sale in Fla. So interesting to read the backs of the pics & postcards!

This is the best hobby ever! Soo many hidden treasures to find, so many stories to be told.. its amazing!

the 1930s music is just the perfect finish touch. this is a beautiful hobby.

This is like a movie for me. You tell me a story about others through yourself in a way no one has done before. This is a work of art.

I miss looking at old photos of my family. Unfortunately, all those scrap books, all those boxes of memories, turned to ash from a fire that devastated our old house. The nostalgia pictures bring are worth a thousand, a million words. This is definitely a great hobby and probably the best video on KZfaq I have ever seen...

Talking Pictures is going to be a book! 200+ of my favorite found and written-on photos. It's coming out in October. You can pre-order on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Links in the more-info tab!

I got teary eyed. I'm not sure if it was your interest shining through or the long-forgotten stories of many people...or I don't even know. All I know is, that video was so well-done, and the analogy of old photos being like a record was genius. The way you conveyed your fascination with old photos reminds me of what I feel as a writer-the intrigue of a story-fictional or nonfictional. You explained your interest in a way people can understand and relate to-someday I hope to do the same.

I collect photographs of old wedding pictures! They are so beautiful!! I always get sad when I go to flea markets and see all the old photos...I wonder myself about the people in the pics and of their lives.

Still one of my favourite videos on KZfaq. I also enjoy looking through bins of photos at flea markets. There are also a few trunks full of photos at my grandparents' place I rummage through from time to time. I would also love to find the Last Kind Words Blues 10 inch single.

Touching, and gives the past a voice that we can hear in our hearts. I've always liked collecting snapshots, too. I have some of very stereotypical scenes, like families on vacation at those motels back in the 1950s and early 1960s. I look at them and remember when my family did such things.

This video made me start going to antique stores to look through the boxes of old photos.

i now am the keeper of thousands of forgotten memories cherishing those memories that others discarded like an old newspaper and sold to the highest bidder

This is amazing. This is people's lives, snapshots of time gone by, forgotten and abandoned, and yet not so. Proof that human life is worth something. That even when seemingly no one else cares, someone somewhere is interested in your existence. I work in a thrift shop, and the saddest part of my day is when someone donates their grandparents photos, presumably, or something of the like, and I have to go through and take them out and throw that person's life away, or so it feels.

Omgsh i love looking at old pictures too...when i was little id use to go to my granmas attic and look at all her old pictures...it felt as if i had traveled in time, i was a rare little girl

I can totally understand that hobby of yours. My grandma has boxes and boxes of old letters,autograph books, diaries and photos, collected over the years. I only found out about them, and they are amazing. I sat there a whole day just marveling and looking through this incredible collection, and I could've sit there another three days.

When John Green said this was one of the best videos ever made, I didn't know what I expected, but I can see what he meant.

"Last Kind World Blues." Puts a slight . . . glint in my eye. I love it.

Once in awhile you come across a video that really makes you think. This is one of them.

Of all the collector hobbies I can think of, that's one of the ones that touches our humanity the deepest.

I do the exact same thing! I love going to antique stores and sorting the pictures, finding the ones where the eyes speak to you and feel the connection in your soul, to these people who you've never met, and never will. I think its the potential to learn the story, to glean their lives from the varying shades of gray and the, as you've so beautifully illustrated, writing on the back.

It makes me remember that emotions and humanity is older then mannerisms. The heart may change, but the existence of the heart does not.

I can't help but to keep coming back to this video from time to time. It's just hauntingly beautiful, like the snapshots are just the tangible ghosts of the past... I love it.

I also have collected old photographs for many years and wasn't sure why until I saw your work. I guess I've been hearing the talking photos and didn't realize. There voices are so gentle and bypass the ears. Thanks for this great work and translating the beautiful voices of the past.

I almost lost it at the "So awful lonesome wish you were here".. Devastatingly beautiful, thank you for sharing

This is one of the best videos I've ever seen. This is so amazing. I like old, vintage stuff, but it's different when you can touch it, instead of just looking through glass at it in a museum. The pictures that you have, they're the people that weren't special. They weren't heroes, or famous. They were people. They were just like us.

I've never met or heard of another person that does this too! Me and my mother love to look through all the ones at out local junk store. It's just that feeling of getting to imagine someone's life story simply from a picture and perhaps if you're lucky, a small inscription on the back. My Mom says they make her feel sad that they are someone's pictures that nobody wanted, but I always remind her that we wanted them and now they can be remembered, at least in this way. Thanks for making this.

Gosh I love watching this! It makes me so happy and nostalgic. Like part of me is sitting in the chair watching the video, and the other part of me is across the world watching people get pictures taken of them.

I just bought this book last night. Words can't describe how wonderful it is. I found a lot of myself and my family in this book among all those strangers' faces. Thank you.

I have always loved old photos!! I would look at my grandfathers for hours asking him about every person. Now at thrift stores and antique stores I often look at the of photos and think up a story of what was going on in that persons life. I think old photos have so much more value then the photos today since now so many people have 100's of photos and can print and upload almost endlessly. I have never bought any old photos but maybe I'll start.

You have shown so beautifully why I love old photos and the stories that lay behind them. Thank you.

i first watched this video when it came out. it got me started with my own collection of images. i had just moved to a new city and had no friends, so i started going to sunday morning flea markets to get out of the house. recently a friend asked why i started collecting and i showed her this video, now she also collects images.

Damn this editing seems way ahead of it's time!

this has inspired me to want to collect old photos, ive always been fascinated by them when they come up in text books and other places

I come back to this video every couple of months. Honestly this is my favorite video on youtube. Thank you for making this.

I cried when I watched this. I don't know why. I guess I am just incredibly attached to photos, to me they truly are snapshots of the soul. Even though I don't know any of these people in the photos, I know that I love them. And I miss them like they were my family. Thank you for sharing your collection.

This made me cry ._. plus, it made me wonder why families throw away such memories.. I guess people just want to forget who they came from.. WHAT they came from.

I was reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower today and I remembered this video when Charlie talks about old pictures: he thinks that the 'people in the old pictures seems a little happier than you're now'. I love this video! :)

Love this video! I collect old snapshots, too, and make up stories about them. "I can't tell you why I like the ones I like. They talk to me, I guess." That's exactly how I feel! I especially love finding a group of pictures that are of the same person.

I love your videos. I think I've watched them all. Beautiful messages that make me smile, make me cry... Please keep making them. Please keep writing.

As a photographer, this is possibly the most amazing video of the stories that photographs tell. Thank you!

The love you have put into this speaks volumes about you as a film maker. Very admirable. Love this.

I had an employer who had the same hobby of collecting old snapshots. He likes them because they make him smile; sometimes he would even keep an ad in a magazine because he liked the person in it. He owns a kite shop in a small shopping village in my home town, and always ends up "holding customers hostage," as he termed it, to show them the photos and recommend the same old bookstore he has been visiting for years.

I too like old pics.I stare at them for ages thinking stuff like,I wonder what they did the minute the photo was taken,where did they go,where they happy,sad,are they still alive in old age.A thousand questions run through my mind.

All those people who I will never meet lived lives with happy and bad days, smiles, laughter, tears, and pain. Thinking about this, it really makes me appreciate life. Everything I'm going through right now, those people also did, in some form or another. They got through it. Maybe not with the happiest ending or maybe with an ending happier than mine will be, but they got through it and are still be remembered. I just think that it's a really pleasant thought.

This is the most amazing hobby ever. I also love looking at old photos and wondering about the people, the context, and so on. Your books are amazing and the photos are beautiful. Congrats on having your own movie now too

This is an amazing video. I often find myslef looking through old picture albums in my grandmothers attic, and I love reading the things written on them.

ive only had my collection of old relatives etc but now im gonna try finding more of people i dont know i freaking love stuff like this

I've loved this video for so long, and now I'm getting your book for Christmas!

It is amazing how much can be said in a few words and a photo. Thanks for sharing this.

Oh gosh now I know I won't be able to stop myself collecting old photographs when I see them.

This made me cry seeing those photos of peoples family dead and so blatantly saying it on a back of a photograph... I wish I could go hug my dad right now...

wow, Id love to look at all of those. when ever I go to someones house my favorite thing to do is look at all their pictures. I especially love the older ones.

Dude thank you, ive always done this when ever i go to the antiques store, i love old pictures. people were so beautiful

I love your hobby. I love to stories pictures can tell; the memories they cling to; the energy they give off. Sometimes snapshots feel so alive. Wonderful video.

I wish they were more fascinating video-makers like you on KZfaq. Your videos are incredible.

This is one one of the best videos I've ever seen on youtube. Its not funny, nor shocking nor ground breaking even. Yet it is so hauntingly beautiful...

Me too. Luv old pics. Thanks for the video.

I'm proud to say I too share your love for collecting old photographs, and I'm really glad I'm not the only one. My friends make me feel like poop for sifting through piles of old photos and spending money on these pictures of people I don't know, but I truly enjoy them! I found some really nice ones- along with an old tintype, circa the 1870s- in NYC in the east village. This video has made me really happy. :)

That's one of the more meaningful and interesting collections a person can keep... I'm very glad John Green sent me over here

It is a shame people my age don't appreciate things like this. Instead, they talk about all of the celebrities, or the newest songs. Caught up in their own lives. Not admiring the dirt on their shoes, or the dew on the grass. The little things are what make the world go round. Every once in a while we all have to step back, and admire the people and things around us. It is a shame people my age don't appreciate things like this, because they are truly missing out, on the best video on youtube.

I had no idea people sold old photos like that. I love old snapshots and thinking of the people and stories and lives they represent. I totally want to do this now. :)

This video is visually gorgeous and the emotional drive behind this hobby is wonderful.

You really have an artist eye for these photos, I can see why you chose some of them. I really like this, please do another!

This film gave me shivers. I mean, in a good way. You are truly talented.

i remember when i was cleaning out my grandma's house last summer there were tons of old photos we just through away

I love reading your books!

who would ever throw pictures like that out?! this is amazing

This has made me want to start looking thru the pictures I have, I keep pushing them aside because sometimes the more "urgent" gets in the way.

I have the same obsession with old photos, most the ones I have are of my family from circa 1915 up to the present day. But I love black and white photos and early colorized ones and wish I could find more someday.

Thanks for sharing, Ran. I grew up around antiques, so much so that they blend into the background for me. I appreciate that someone can find the stories, the memories, the wisdom that they impart to us. It's a reminder for me to look for the stories that are there. -J

This is beautiful and amazing. It almost made me cry several times. I hope that someday, you'll find pictures of my family.

Oh my God. This is my favorite video of all time. All. Time.

Following a link to this video is one of the best choices I've made lately. This is amazing.

You know, I realize that everyone is complaining about the new homepage but without it I would've never found this video. You did a really lovely job choosing your photos. I'm really glad that Project for Awesome liked/favourited this video and led me here.

Beautiful. I could see why they would be very meaningful things to collect. A snippet of a story, left to imagine. Lovely, and often very sad that you'll never know the whole story. Who they were, what they did before and after the picture was taken.

This is one of my favorite videos ever. It reminds me of a little book I bought at a flea-market the other day, a book called "live and learn and pass it on". Its a book about what people have learned from life, at all ages, and advices they want to give. On the first page it says: "Wenche, I thought you might enjoy these words of wisdom. All the best, Judy Longsworth. 5.20.93" I wonder who they are, or who they were, and why Wenche gave this beautiful book away.