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In an age of digital photography and Photoshop manipulation, it’s refreshing to rest the eyes on photographs that are more about the moment than the mechanics. I hadn’t heard of vernacular photography (vintage, or found, photography) until I landed on bighappyfunhouse, a vernacular photography blog by Ron Slattery. At bighappyfunhouse, Ron serves up found photos (like ready, pictured above), and free pie. You’ll also find a long list of interesting links.

Vernacular photography is also more popular than I would have thought. I did a Google search and found 4,520 pages, including three Flikr groups devoted to vernacular photography: vernacular photo, Fashions Past, and Found Photos.

There’s something fascinating about these photos. It isn’t just nostalgia. We all have pictures like these in a shoebox in the closet, or in faded albums in the garage, but perusing your own past is too personal, too potent with memory. These anonymous pictures are captivating, full of innocence and mystery. They aren’t dated; they’re timeless. Viewing them, you become a fly on the wall in a different world.

Ron also publishes a blog called Slats.org, where he posts “[s]treet photos from around Chicago taken with a cheapo point and shoot camera by a man with questionable taste.”