If you recognize these pictures or the women in them, be sure to let Meagan know on her Facebook page or use the hashtag #FindTheGirlsOnTheNegatives!
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When photographer Meagan Abell stumbled upon a box of film negatives of old photographs at her local thrift store in Richmond, Virginia, she was stunned by their beauty.
“I feel like you can literally look at them and feel exactly how it would be to be in her situation – walking into the water, fully-clothed, not caring at all”, the photographer said.
So far, no one’s identified the women in these images, but plenty are speculating about where and when the photos were taken.
Abell said she bought the transparencies at a thrift shop in Richmond, Va., for three dollars a piece.
“They were sitting in a box of old vintage photographs in these plastic sleeves, and from what I could tell, they had been taken sometime in the 50′s”.
Never ones to turn down a good sleuthing, the online masses quickly jumped into action. “And these photos are so attractive, I just want to know the stories behind them”.
As of Friday morning, they had been shared more than 14,000 times on Facebook. Not to mention extensive coverage from media outlets including ABC News and the BBC. “Like I think I owe them at least that much”, she says. “You could tell someone had lovingly taken them”, said Abell.
“I found 4 sets of medium format negatives while I was thrift shop hunting a few weeks ago”, she posted. “These photos were taken at a moment when day and night were slipping into each other, but this moment, simultaneously heavy and weightless, seems paralyzingly total, and it gets to live that way here”.
She has launched an internet campaign to track down the models – one of whom she believes could be “Hawaiian or bi-racial” – along with the owner of the film. A photographer herself, she’s always curious.
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The photographer is still following leads, and will be posting more photos from the film transparencies once they’re done being processed.
