57: Maureen Taylor, Photo Detective

Maureen Taylor talks about helping people solve the mysteries of their unidentified photos, a skill we as life story professionals can use to help our clients. 

Maureen Taylor's early career as a curator exposed her to lots of photos. But it wasn't until she opened shop as a photo historian that she discovered just how many unidentified photos people have.

Frequent questions she hears:

• Who is in the photo?
• What is happening in the photo?
• Where was the photo taken?

Rachel Rifkin's photo experiment

Rachel Rifkin, a fellow personal historian, posted photos of herself alongside images of her relatives. Donning similar clothing and mimicking the subject in the old photos, she bore a strong resemblance to her relatives—including a bearded man from yesteryear.

 

Patterns

Change perspective to see the unseen in photos. That's where the big reveals come in.

Not everyone can see faces; not everyone can see details.

Some people suffer from "face-blindness," the inability to differentiate the faces they see. Go here and scroll down to find the quiz, "Are you a super-recognizer?"

Maureen does her detective work on my family photos

 

Links & Stuff

Visit Maureen's website

View Maureen's photo detective courses