My interest in vintage photography stems from being around cameras at an early age. My dad had been a wedding photographer and camera salesman. He later set up darkroom in our basement which I began using in my early teens. My first exposure to "art photography" was seeing Paul Strand's 500 print retrospective exhibit in 1972 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I enrolled in the Art Institute of Boston that fall and began an ongoing study of photography and its history. I later attended Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester before settling in Seattle in 1980. It was at that point, during frequent road trips, that I began informally collecting vintage photographs. Often, the anonymous images I found intrigued me as much as the work of some of my favorite fine art and documentary photography.

In 1990, I shifted my focus from photography to music while co-founding Wall of Sound record store in Seattle, a source for unusual and independently produced recordings. I owned and managed the store until 2002. Sometime in 2000, on a whim, I bought a Polaroid SX70 and tested it out on Aurora Ave. This stretch of Seattle's first highway, and its signs of disappearing roadside Americana, became my obsession over the next couple of years. More than anything this experience, and a resulting exhibit, coalesced my many photographic interests. In the past few years, my attention has been brought back to collecting vintage photography. This process of finding images that hold an element of surprise and resonance is what I love most about photography.

Whatever your interest in these images may be, I hope you will find something in Past Pictures to your liking.

Mark Sullo

Please follow these links to associated sites and further info:


Past Pictures Present - A blog about photographic history, collecting & outstanding images.

Lovely Water Parade - Graphic interest links, personal photography & randomness.

marksullo.com - Personal photography and art projects.

Gregor Jamroski - site design for Past Pictures.