Photos Through Time

Entry one 

As I am writing this now, I stand at a crossroads of what I know to be true about science and the things made up in science fiction novels. However fast the world continues to change throughout the years I have lived and have yet to live. I would have never believed it would move fast enough for fiction to evolve non-fiction. If I were to suggest to anyone the idea of time-travel to be real, the creditable to my name would be nonexistent.  

PI am getting a little too ahead of myself, if I were to fully explain and speak freely, I must provide whomever that has found this journal with as much information as necessary.  

My name is Russ Dayton, and at my old age I feel the need to be nostalgic for my life. Moments from childhood like learning to ride a bike or later in my teens with my first kiss. All these young memories do not compare to what I have witnessed in my adult life as a photojournalist.  

In my young adulthood, I was lucky enough to begin this career early after school and less lucky to start it during the second world war. I have seen and photographed the best and worst things humanity had to offer. The joy and kindness in the world can be easily overlooked and placed in the back of my mind, however, the places I would never wish to visit again are walking around with me, haunting every moment of my life.  

In my old age, I find myself missing those times as they brought me the most clarity to me about truth. As I sit in my living room, looking at old photographs from my past, I am wishing even more to be in a clear mind. 

In front of me sit two photos, one taken at the beginning of my career before the war had officially started. The photo was of a political figure of some sort involved in with Germany. I tried to remember for which purpose I had found myself in this area at this specific time, but I was there, only knowing the feeling of uncertainty about whether I would be able to leave it with my heart still beating.  

The other photo being taken 50 years later, a few years before I had decided to lower my lens completely and enjoyed the rest of my life through my own eye. Taken as I stood watching the demolition of the Berlin Wall. Seeing the power that anger holds over the people of Berlin, I remember being there specifically to take photos of the wall and the divide that had been created between the concrete.  

While both photographs were taken by my hands, with a 50-year difference, there seems to be one similarity between them that has caused me to take a step back and document my discovery into words to understand them. One person that seems to be in each photo, seemingly no age change for them within this time.  

I am not surprised that I hadn’t noticed this before, with the photos so far apart from each other, I wouldn’t have thought to even look for something like that. However, I have noticed it, and I can’t stop noticing it.  

In each photo, they are off to the side enough to not be the focus but enough to be seen. Watching whoever is in the picture closely, average looking enough to seamlessly fit into each setting perfectly enough and dressed appropriately for the time in which it was taken.  

I will admit, at first, I simply believed my old mind was playing tricks on me as it likes to do from time to time. Perhaps they were just similar enough to look the same but be two separate people. Even now as I look at it, that very well could be the case.  

However, there is something off about the person, the look in their eyes, the composure and focus they had in each photo. It has to be the same person, but how? 

I will continue to look for more evidence to prove or disprove this thought once I have focused myself again.  

Entry Two  

I, once again, have found another photo that has caused even more uncertainty for myself.  

It had been a few days, a few sleepless nights, looking through albums of work from my years of work. I looked and looked, but nothing showed itself.  

That was until today, I began looking for pieces of my work that were never published, just part of my personal collection. There weren’t many photographs, just shots of landmarks or the streets I have lived on. Nothing special, so I wasn’t thinking about looking.  

What I found, however, was surprisingly interesting compared to the rest of the photos. At first, I didn’t even notice it. Similar to the other two photos, there was nothing that stood out, and then I noticed it, I noticed them.  

In the photo there was a group of people, all waiting at a crosswalk, looking off into the left off in the distance. For what purpose or reason, they were all looking that way, I couldn’t see or remember that time, it was taken some time around 1943, when I lived in New York.  

What was even more noticeable was that face, the face so similar to the one in the other photos, staring straight ahead instead of to the left like the other subjects in the photo.  

There they were again, looking focused and certain, however, this time it looked as if they were about to run forward to something or someone.  

The more I looked at this strange person, the more I find myself needing to know more about who they were. I have looked at every piece in my collection and come up with three photos in which this person shows up.  

Entry Three 

While I have exhausted all my personal resources, I thought I wouldn’t be able to find anything else to support my claims of this person being a time traveler. There wasn’t any more information I could personally find to look for this strange person. I also couldn’t very well ask someone to help me, as I intend not to spend the rest of my life defending myself to doctors.  

However, the best thing I could have thought of was researching what I could about these situations that I had photographed. Knowing the exact date of the most recent photo I had found will be much harder than the other two.  

I began with the most recent photo of the Berlin Wall; I supposed that this would be much easier to find accounts and stories from. However, nothing came to it.  

What I did find could very well be an assumption. While looking at accounts from the war, I found a woman speaking about her time helping the allies during the war. While there wasn’t much to note of it at first. She spoke about the people she could and couldn’t help, where she spent most of her time during the war, and what has changed about the world since the war.  

What caught my attention was what inspired her to choose such a path for herself. She spoke about a time when she was young, while she was leaving to go help, she had struggled with this decision of leaving her family and going to help people. The war was filled with tough decisions. I remember feeling somewhat similar to this during that time, although I wasn’t necessarily helping people.  

She mentioned almost leaving, but someone stopped her. She remembered talking to this strange person just to ease her mind. She didn’t notice them standing near her, but when she started talking suddenly, they appeared. She noticed their focused expression as if they were searching for something of someone, similar to what I had noticed about my strange person.  

“Like an angel, showing me where I was meant to be...” she stated in the interview, “they helped guide me to what I was meant to be...I wouldn’t have been able to even imagine what my life could have been if I left that train station that day.”  

It's hard to say if this is connected to what I have noticed, as I do more research, I’ll look for more details. Maybe I could even look for this lady, if it’s really connected in any way.