Alvin
Bettinger, Jr
Remnants of the Past
All that remains of my grandfather’s work—a lifetime of
photographs—is inside a large book of contact sheets—images
that are only about an inch wide each. The images were all taken between
the years 1962 and 1969, with subject matter ranging from family and
friends to coworkers and complete strangers. At the time these photographs
were taken, my grandfather was living in Chicago, Illinois.
I only met my grandfather once that I can remember. When I was ten
years old he was moving from London back to live in Arizona and stopped
to sleep on my parents couch for a few weeks. My memories of that
time are silent and flickering, like an old film, but filled with
smell and vibrant color—spicy sausages cooking on the stove;
red, blue, and green robots on the television screen; and early morning
sunshine filtering through the green leaves of my mother’s plant.
Early in the morning, before anyone else in the house was awake, my
grandfather and I would sit on the couch in the living room and silently
watch cartoons together. It was the same couch I sat on, years later,
when I found out he had died. I remember laughing nervously as I told
my best friend he was dead. All I could think was, “This isn’t
funny, why am I laughing?” He was the first dead person I knew.
A year or so after my grandfather died, my mother received boxes and
suitcases full of my grandfather’s belongings. Inside one of
the boxes she found the book of contact sheets. All of the negatives
had been lost, damaged in a flood in my aunt’s basement and
then thrown away in the trash. Now all that remains is this seven-year
chunk of time, hazy reflections of lost and forgotten moments.
Now, more than forty years later, I turn my camera to this book and
photograph these remnants left by my grandfather of a world long gone.
I develop the film and print the images onto photographic paper, in
the darkroom—as I imagine my grandfather doing so many years
ago.
