Maria Russo interviews Ransom Riggs in Santa Monica:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/books/ransom-riggs-is-inspired-by-vintage-snapshots.html
Mr. Riggs’s attraction to haunting photographs eventually became the catalyst for his first novel, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” (2011), a surprise best seller, whose plot was inspired by the dozens of vintage snapshots featured in its pages, which add to its uncanny atmosphere. With the film rights to “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” sold to 20th Century Fox (Chernin Entertainment is aiming for a summer 2015 release), and “Hollow City,” the second book in a planned “Miss Peregrine” trilogy, to be published in January, Mr. Riggs is beginning to feel at home in a career he calls “accidental.”
It was in 2009 that Mr. Riggs, a graduate of the University of Southern California’s film school, stumbled on a trove of vintage snapshots at a flea market and felt the stirrings of an obsession.
“I realized I can find these amazing little lost pieces of art and be my own curator and rescue them from the garbage,” he said, “and they’re a quarter each.” Long a connoisseur of abandoned houses and mysteriously desolate landscapes, Mr. Riggs said he was drawn to odd or disturbing photos that suggested lost back stories.
Reflections from the past often have a haunting effect as they remind us of times long gone and peoples lives that suggest untold stories.
In one way or another we all have a fascination with years gone by and the folk who once were a part of this world that we are at present the caretakers of.
I understand the concept of wonder when I come across an old piece of furniture which leads my mind to imagine who once sat in that chair or was it a happy home an old dilapidated dresser once knew.
While not intending to dwell on the past it can certainly be a reminder that many have walked before us and their invisible footsteps are imbedded in our history forever.