Old Family Photographs – posing with vintage cars and other wheels

I’ve gathered together some old family photographs that all, with the exception of the final image, predate my birth. In these photographs the cars and other forms of transport are integral to the photograph, they are not just part of the background. My parents and relatives wanted these objects to feature and be recorded. The … Read more

Charlie Chaplin: iconography and the immigrant

I’ve just started reading Confabulations by John Berger, who died earlier in January this year.  Recently I’ve been reading almost exclusively on my Kindle (in a space-saving Marie Kondo-like spirit) but I decided to buy a hard copy of the book – it’s small, portable with a good-sized font, and illustrated with colour photographs and … Read more

Top Hat

In the 1920s my paternal grandparents left Iran for Palestine before settling in the UK in 1928. Here’s a photograph from that era showing my grandparents all dressed up. David Aminoff, who I knew as BOBO is in a top hat and is holding a cane and his wife Dvora aka BIBI is wearing a fur coat … Read more

My dad before I knew him

In today’s Guardian newspaper I was reading an article in the Books section in which writers, inspired by Carol Ann Duffy’s poem Before You Were Mine, reflect on photographs of their mothers before they were born. This is connected to the theme of Mother’s Day which happens to fall tomorrow, Sunday March 6. March 6 … Read more