Favorite find: LIFE Magazine archives

While this isn't a very new discovery, it is one of the most important ones I have ever made. My grandmother always had old issues of LIFE Magazine lying around her house. Every time I managed to stumble across another, I felt as though I could open it and enter the days of America's past in just a moment. 

It's certainly no revelation to see that LIFE Magazine captured aspects of American life in the twentieth century in a manner that no other publication came close to. The name LIFE is iconic, both for the icons and the most average of people that it featured. 

I could spend hours perusing the LIFE archives. Many of the photos featured on the website have long been lost, never even published in the pages of the print magazine. These are the photos that may not have seemed exciting at the time, but now provide invaluable insight into our ever-changing culture. 

I particularly love these three images for all sorts of reasons. The first of course is Liz Taylor and Richard Burton on the set of 'Cleopatra.' Their romance is so intriguing to me in that it was so wrought with scandal, that it almost reads as fictitious (yet it's entirely true). The look that they are exchanging in this photo says more than I ever could. 

The second photo is of Woody Allen at his Manhattan home in 1967, at just 31 years old. This gallery, and the article that accompany it, dive into his early neuroticism and complexities even as a young man. This photo portrays him as so completely normal, simply working in his office, and I think that is what I love most about it. 

The last photo is a part of one of my favorite galleries entitled 'The Invention of Teenagers: LIFE and the Triumph of Youth Culture.' It's always interesting to see how differently people of the same age as you lived throughout history. These teens told the photographer that they loved rides to football games in this car. Be still my heart. 

If you ever find yourself in a fit of boredom, I cannot recommend the LIFE archives enough. You'll soon find yourself engulfed in an undying curiosity for the rich history that lies in those unpublished images.