"We Were Always There..."

What I Like About This: Here are a vintage couple serving together in the army, perhaps in late 1950-60s. You can tell that they wanted to preserve a memento of their love and so choose to take this photo booth portrait together.  

But I also always note that in these old photos you can usually tell, there was one of them who was brave and probably proposed taking the photo, in this case the confident looking fellow on the left... And then there is, as we see here, one of them who is more apprehensive, less at ease about it, perhaps fearful that if the photo fell into the wrong hands and secrets were revealed, life would be ruined, in this case our chap on the right. And yet, over the years, I've discovered hundreds of these photos taken by couples who lived in less enlightened times, but who nevertheless found the courage to record who they were and who they loved. 

I am truly thankful for these images, because as most young boys from my generation and before, when I realized that I was gay, I thought I was alone in the world, and it was images like these that convinced me that not only was I not alone in world, but that, "we were always there..."