AN AMATEUR CAN BE
AN ARTIST ABOUT VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHY
3
AN AMATEUR CAN BE
AN ARTIST ABOUT VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHY
TITLE AUTHOR GRAPHIC DESIGN PRINT
An Amateur Can Be An Artist Sara Pimenta Sara Pimenta Norcopia
AN AMATEUR CAN BE
AN ARTIST SARA PIMENTA
F Pho ound tog wha raphy , t is it 10
Vernacu lar Pho togra phy, definitio n 14
ts o h s ap rists n S ia D 56
r Vernacula hies Pho tograp
20
DI
The pleasure in photography
“Who took this photo?”; “Where?”
came not many years ago and it
“With what camera?”; “What day
grows with each passing day. Since
was it?“; “Who is this?”, are very
I found an analog camera in the
familiar to everyone.
garage of a family member, that the obsession started. I feel a special charm for aban-
IA
L
already was, back in times, a family tradition to all homes. Today this
doned places and the marks of
practice has faded and unfortu-
the time in every inch of a space.
nately, one day it will be gone, all
But more than that, there is always
photos will be “lost” in a digital
a magical moment in every roll
system and will never be seen with
revealed, when the spaces that
the same eyes of those who see
were black in the film, and voids
them physically. Personally I think it
in memory, gain color and shape.
is wonderful to be able to feel a
The same applies to the photo
photograph, remember or even
albums, each one that is opened,
imagine, the day, the situation and
each page that is turned, memo-
the scenario in which it was taken.
ries are revived. Questions like
TO R
The act of (re)view photo albums
With the recent ease in which
almost anything is also a camera,
And it was for all these reasons I
the amount of people seduced by
decided to, in this book, explore
photography increased significant-
the theme of amateur photogra-
ly. And the amateur photography
phy and how amateurs can also be
must also have the place in the
amazing recognized artists.
history of photography, whether it
The photographs displayed
is a photo of a more sophisticated
throughout all chapters (with the
camera, as an photo of a applica-
exception of the first) were found
tion for mobile phones.
in a drawer of a closet at the home
I also know collectors of lost
of a family member. They should
photos on the streets, and I myself
come with letters full of promises
gather pieces of photographs
and hopes of love, but unfortu-
abandoned in the revelation
nately they were all already gone.
laboratories, those color tests that
The amateur performers in this
no longer interest the others. But
case are the various elements of
to me they do. They’re pieces of
the Portuguese Air Federation in
art. Photography constantly
the year of 1974. The scenario is
becomes art, and vice versa.
Mozambique.
FOUND PHOTOGRAPHY, what is it
Source: the website “Wikipedia”
Found Photography, what is it
All photos founded in Sheffield and Manchester.
Found photography is a genre of
“shoot” the photograph itself,
photography and/or visual art
does not know anything about the
based on the recovery (and
photographer, and generally does
possible exhibition) of lost,
not know anything about the
unclaimed, or discarded photo-
subject(s) of the photographs.
graphs. It is related to vernacular
Found photos are generally
photography, but differs in the fact
acquired at flea markets, thrift
that the “presenter” or exhibitor
stores, yard sales, estate sales, or
of the photographs did not
literally just “found” anywhere.
13
All photos founded in Sheffield and Manchester.
Found Photography, what is it
All photos founded in Sheffield and Manchester.
15
VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHY, definition
Source: the blog “A Found Photo”
Vernacular Photography, definitio
“Missão Namgococo (em vôo), 1974”
“Tete (A.B.7), 1974”
17
Vernacular photography refers to
architecture refers more to the
the creation of photographs by
meaning of the following sub-
amateur or unknown photogra-
definition (of vernacular architec-
phers who take everyday life and
ture) from The Oxford English
common things as subjects.
Dictionary: “concerned with
Though the more commonly
ordinary domestic and functional
known definition of the word
buildings rather than the essen-
vernacular is a quality of being
tially monumental”. Examples of
“indigenous” or “native”, the use
vernacular photographs include
of the word in relation to art and
travel and vacation photos, family
Vernacular Photography, definitio
“Beira - Troca de farda com o meu irmão, 1974”
“Tete (festa na linha da frente) , 1974”
19
“Beira, 1974”
snapshots, photos of friends, class
the recovery of a “lost,” un-
portraits, identification photo-
claimed, or discarded vernacular
graphs, and photobooth images.
photograph or snapshot. Found
Vernacular photographs are types
photos can be found at flea
of “accidental” art, in that they
markets, thrift stores, yard sales,
often are unintentionally artistic.
estate sales, in dumpsters and
Closely related to vernacular
trash cans, between the pages of
photography is “found photogra-
books, in old furniture, in family
phy,” which in one sense refers to
garages, or on sidewalks.
Vernacular Photography, definitio
“Beira, 1974�
The use of vernacular photography in the arts is almost as old as photography itself. Vernacular photography has become far more commonplace in recent years as an new art technique. Vernacular photographs also have become popular with art collectors and with collectors of found photos.
21
VERNACULAR PHOTOGRAPHIES
Source: Each Wild Idea Writing Photography History, Geoffrey Batchen, 1999
Vernacular Photographies
“Beira , 1974”
23
How can photography be restored
enameled faces fixed to metal
to its own history? And how can
memorial roundels, image-impreg-
we ensure this history will be both
nated pillows and quilts, snapshot
materially grounded and conceptu-
albums, panoramas of church
ally expansive, just like the medium
groups, wedding pictures, formal
itself? Well, perhaps we should
portraits of the family dog,
start by considering what has
lampshades projecting dad’s last
always been excluded from
fishing trip, baby photos paired
photography’s history: ordinary
with bronzed booties, coffee mugs
photographs, the ones made or
emblazoned with pictures of the
bought (or sometimes bought and
kids, snowdomes containing a
then made over) by everyday folk
girlfriend’s photogenic smile: this is
from 1839 until now, the photo-
the popular face of photography,
graphs that preoccupy the home
so popular that it has been largely
and the heart but rarely the
ignored by the critical gaze of
museum or the academy. Elabo-
respectable history. To these
rately cased daguerreotypes,
examples could be added a
ambrotype jewelery embellished
multitude of equally neglected
with twists of human hair,
indigenous genres and practices,
certificates bearing the tintype
from gilt Indian albumen prints, to
portraits of those they authorize,
American painted and framed
Vernacular Photographies
“Alojamento Tete (Mutarara), 1974”
25
“1974”
tintypes, to Mexican fotoescultura,
It is not difficult to understand
to Nigerian ibeji images. Taken
why vernacular photographies
together, these ordinary and
have attracted so little attention in
regional artifacts represent the
the traditional account of photog-
troublesome field of vernacular
raphy’s history. Although historical
photography; they are the abject
accounts of photography written
photographies for which an
in the nineteenth or early twenti-
appropriate history must now,
eth century tend to include an
surely and correctly, be written.
eclectic selection of photographies,
Vernacular Photographies
“Vista em vôo, S.A. 330 (Puma), 1974”
throughout the late twentieth
anonymous, amateur, working-
century, most histories tenaciously
class, and sometimes even
focused on the artistic ambitions of
collective hands or, worse, by crass
the medium, excluding all other
commercial profiteers. Most of
genres except as they complement
these photographic objects have
a formalist art-historical narrative.
little rarity or monetary value in
Vernacular photographies resist
today’s market, and seem to have
this kind of classification, tending
minimal intellectual content
to be made in vast numbers by
beyond sentimental cliché.
27
Worst of all, their idiosyncratic
Jacques Derrida points to a similar
morphologies refuse to comply
gap in Kant’s Critique of Judg-
with the coherent progression of
ment, a book in which the
styles and technical innovations
German philosopher seeks to
demanded by photography’s art
exclude from “the proper object of
history; they muck up the familiar
the pure judgment of taste” that
story of great masters and
which “is only an adjunct, and not
transcendent aesthetic achieve-
an intrinsic constituent in the
ments, and disrupt its smooth
complete representation of an
European-American prejudice. In
object” (ornamentation, frames of
short, vernaculars are photogra-
pictures, drapery on statues,
phy’s parergon, the part of its
colonnades on palaces—what he
history that has been pushed to
calls parerga ).1 In short, like
the margins (or beyond them to
photography’s historians, Kant is
oblivion) precisely in order to
against allowing the adjunct to
delimit what is and is not proper to
take precedence over or distract
this history’s enterprise.
from what he regards as the
So there is a lacuna in photogra-
essential—taste’s “proper object.”
phy’s history, an absence. And we
His problem, of course, is distin-
are talking about the absence not
guishing one from the other. The
just of vernacular photographies
more he tries, the more he finds
themselves, but of a cogent
himself undercutting the entire
explanation for that absence.
infrastructure of his philosophy.
Vernacular Photographies
“O.T.A. Juramento de Bandeira, 1972�
29
So too with photography’s
phy’s parergon therefore signals a
historians. They have no choice but
painful necessity, “not of a
to ignore the vernacular photo-
renovated aesthetics, but of
graph because to deal with it
transforming the object, the work
directly would be to reveal the
of art, beyond recognition.”2
shallow artifice of their historical
Some photo historians have
judgment, and of the notion of the
already begun this process. Books
artwork on which it is based.
like Michel Braive’s The Photo-
As Craig Owens has suggested, seeing vernaculars as photogra-
“Festa da linha da frente. Tete , 1974”
graph: A Social History (1966), Camfi eld and Deirdre Wills’s
Vernacular Photographies
History of Photography: Techniques
collectors (such as Reflecting on
and Equipment (1980), and Heinz
Photography, 1839–1902: A
and Bridget Henisch’s The Photo-
Catalog of the Cotter Collection
graphic Experience, 1839–1914
from 1973) and the Guide to
(1994) have abandoned the usual
Collections of relatively enlight-
art-historical chronology in an
ened institutions like the alifornia
effort to encompass a full gamut
Museum of Photography at
of photographic practices. To these
Riverside. There have also been
pioneering efforts could be added
occasional specialist studies
the catalogues of omniverous
ringing attention to hitherto
“1974”
31
neglected vernacular genres, as in
Histoire de la Photographie, edited
the 1983 study of the Shedden
by Michel Frizot in 1995, also goes
Studio photographs, Stanley
to considerable eff ort to extend its
Burns’s 1995 book, Forgotten
coverage beyond the boundaries
Marriage, on the painted tintype
established by Helmut Gernsheim
tradition, James Wyman’s 1996
and Beaumont Newhall, even
exhibition of photo backdrops, and
including an appreciative, if
Christopher Pinney’s 1997
belated, chapter on ordinary
anthropological study of Indian
photographs.
photographic culture. Some survey
These are all important contribu-
histories of photography have also
tions to the rethinking of photo-
begun to exhibit the broadening
graphic history’s purview.
influence of cultural studies. Mattie
Nevertheless, we have yet to see
Boom and Hans Rooseboom, for
vernaculars being made the
example, compiled their 1996
organizing principle of photogra-
study of the photo collections of
phy’s history in general, yet to see
the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
a vernacular theory of photogra-
under a series of strikingly generic
phy being advanced. And this is
chapter headings: Landscape,
despite the fact that in terms of
Buildings and Cities, The Repro-
sheer numbers, they constitute the
duction of Art, Museums and
vast majority of photographs
Monuments, Anthropology and
made. (On that basis, of course, art
Anthropological Types, Events,
photography should barely rate a
Science, and so on. Nouvelle
mention.) But there are other
Vernacular Photographies
reasons why this kind of work
concentrate here on just one
deserves serious critical attention.
attribute common to many
As a parergon, vernacular
vernacular photographic practices,
photography is the absent
the creative exploration of the
presence that determines its
photograph’s morphological
medium’s historical and physical
possibilities, and, on one location,
identity; it is that thing that
the domestic sphere. And I will do
decides what proper photography
so as part of an ongoing investiga-
is not. Truly to understand
tion of the complex matter of
photography and its history,
photography’s conceptual,
therefore, one must closely attend
historical, and physical identity.
to what that history has chosen to
Morphology is another of those
repress. Moreover, by reminding us
issues that most histories of
of the differences within photogra-
photography ignore. Indeed, the
phy, vernaculars insist that there
invisibility of the photograph, its
are many photographies, not just
transparency to its referent, has
one, indicating a need for an
long been one of its most cher-
equally variegated array of
ished features. All of us tend to
historical methods and rhetorics. In
look at photographs as if we are
other words, vernacular photogra-
simply gazing through a two-
phies demand the invention of
dimensional window onto some
suitably vernacular histories.
outside world. This is almost a
All this is beyond the capacities of any single essay. So I will
perceptual necessity; in order to see what the photograph is of, we
33
“Boeing 707 da F.A.P., 1974”
Vernacular Photographies
must first repress our conscious-
sensual and creative artifacts but
ness of what the photograph is. As
also as thoughtful, even provoca-
a consequence, in even the most
tive meditations on the nature of
sophisticated discussions, the
photography in general.
photograph itself—the actual
An awareness of the physicality
object being examined—is usually
of the photograph is an unavoid-
left out of the analysis. Vernacular
able feature of photography’s
photographies tend to go the
earliest processes, particularly the
other way, so frequently do they
daguerreotype. Dependent on the
exploit the fact that the photo-
light sensitivity of a silvered sheet
graph is something that can also
of copper, the daguerreotype
have colume, opacity, tactility, and
image was too delicate and
a physical presence in the world. In
unstable to be touched directly. It
many cases, this exploitation
was therefore covered by a glass
involves the subject of the
sheet and then packaged in a silk-
photograph’s intervening within or
or velvet-lined leather case like a
across the photographic act. These
precious jewel. The daguerreotype
subjects make us attend to their
case was itself sometimes deco-
photography’s morphologies, and
rated with embossed designs,
thus to look right at rather than
painted landscapes, and patterned
only through the photograph. In
inserts. Certain examples were
this sense, vernacular photo
disguised or covered in expensive
objects can be read not only as
materials like mother-of-pearl.
35
Later cases were made from an early thermoplastic, enabling detailed patriotic scenes to be represented in high relief; these stimulated the fi ngers as much as they delighted the eyes. Although daguerreotypes were obviously conceived by their makers as multifaceted objects, with both an inside and an outside, most histories of photography still isolate and reproduce only the image, excluding much of what made the daguerreotype such a particular experience.3 As a combination of metal, glass, timber, and leather, daguerreotypes have a distinctive weight when held, a feature that adds the gravitas of gravity to their list of elements, constituent parts.
Vernacular Photographies
37
Perhaps that is one reason why so
not to a particular image but to
many daguerreotypes feature
the brute objectness of photogra-
images of people holding another
phy in general, the comforting
daguerreotype, even when this is
solidity of its memorial function.
represented by nothing more than
Most daguerreotypes were made
a closed case.
to be viewed in the hand and are
Sometimes this case is the one we
scaled accordingly. However, only
are now holding; we look inside to
when we slip the small clasps of a
see the outside, thus collapsing
daguerreotype’s casing, only when
sight and touch, inside and
we perform according to the
outside, into the same perceptual
object’s prescribed demand, do we
experience. It is as though these
get to encounter the image inside.
people want to draw our attention
Surrounded by a faux-gold mat,
Vernacular Photographies
“Turma de Rádio Avião. Paço de Arcos, 1974”
39
this image winks up at us with the flash of a highly burnished mirror. The daguerreotype is simultaneously a negative and a positive, so to become legible as a picture, the silvered plate has to be maneuvered to an angle of forty-five degrees to the light. Hand and eye must work as one if a daguerreotype is to be brought into visibility; the look of the image comes only with the feel of its materiality. Designed to be touched, these photographs touch back, casually grazing the pores of our skin with their textured surfaces. In this mutual stroking of the flesh, we are reminded once again that an image is also an object and that simulation is inseparable from substance. Most important, we are made to behold the thingness of
Vernacular Photographies
the visual —its thickness, the tooth of its grain—even as we simultaneously encounter the visuality of the tactile—its look, the piercing force of its perception. Photography is privileged within modern culture because, unlike other systems of representation, the camera does more than just see the world; it is also touched by it. Photographs are designated as indexical signs, images produced as a consequence of being directly affected by the objects to which they refer.4 It is as if those objects have reached out and impressed themselves on the surface of a photograph, leaving their own visual imprint, as faithful to the contour of the original object as a death mask is to the newly departed. On this basis, photo-
41
graphs are able to parade them-
dull objectivity of a formulaic
selves as the world’s own chemical
studio portrait. But it also adds the
fingerprints, nature’s poignant
color of life to the monotones of a
rendition of herself as memento
medium often associated with
mori. And it is surely this combina-
death. In many cases, these
tion of the haptic and the visual,
painted additions provided, with
this entanglement of both touch
their slender trails of gilt, a
and sight, that makes photogra-
welcome illusion of success and
phy so compelling as a medium.
prosperity. The paint also helped
Compelling, but also strangely
bring some photographic images—
paradoxical. As Roland Barthes has
daguerreotypes, for example—un-
suggested, “Touch is the most
der the control of the eye. The
demystifying of all senses, unlike
polished silver surface of the
sight, which is the most magical.”
daguerreotype off ers a gestalt
It is striking how many vernacular
experience in which one sees,
photographic objects overtly reflect
alternately, one’s own refl ection
on this same paradox.All sorts of
and the portrait being examined.
photographs were modified with
The application of paint brought a
paint in the nineteenth century.6
matte opacity to this gleaming
This touch of the brush, often
surface, giving it a perceptual
enough only to accentuate jewelry
tactility that halts the daguerreo-
or add a little rouge to a sitter’s
type’s disconcerting oscillation
cheeks, brings a subjective,
between mirror and picture. The
“artistic” element to the otherwise
viewer’s eye is thereby able to gain
5
Vernacular Photographies
“Missão Namgozôco. Nampula, 1974”
43
a purchase on the photograph
framed portraits (Charles Eastlake
without the discomfort of having
called them Wall-Furniture) and
to confront itself staring back.
tables and mantels covered in
The use of photographs as a
smaller stands or photographic
collage element is not confined to
viewing machines.7 Everywhere a
albums. This practice was also
visitor turned, he or she was faced
extended to domestic interiors,
with the insistent presence of
where, for example, we once
photographic objects.
might have encountered cabinet
It is still like that in many homes.
cards arranged in a dense vertical
Walls soon come to be festooned
layer against a floral wallpaper,
with framed pictures of the
together with ribbons, a tambou-
wedding ceremony or of the kids,
rine, and a conveniently supportive
often taken in color by professional
tennis racquet. An early Kodak
photographers. The wedding
snapshot of such an arrangement
picture has its own peculiar history,
also records a small stand holding
a direct link back to the formal
a photograph, one of a vast
studio portraiture of the nine-
number of devices manufactured
teenth century and, before that, to
for such purposes. Late nineteenth
the dynastic paintings of the
-and early twentiethcentury homes
aristocracy. Of course, no wedding
often demonstrate a pronounced
would be complete today without
interest in photographs as pieces
photographs being taken to record
of domestic architecture, with
the event for posterity. These
rooms containing numerous large
photographs are usually closely
Vernacular Photographies
“Vista Aérea. Nampula, 1974”
45
“Interior do Boeing 707 da F.A.P. 1974�
orchestrated by a professional
acted out a fantasy courtship ritual
photographer (who becomes a key
(groom on bended knee and so
player in the overall wedding
on), retrospectively constructing
event) to ensure the proper
the imaginary course of events
conventions are maintained and
leading up to the wedding itself.
reproduced. A key historical figure
The end result is a series of
in this practice was the American
pictures, from an otherwise lost fi
Rocky Gunn, who introduced both
lm, in which the formal portrait is
color and romantic narrative into
but one, climactic element.8
the wedding picture genre. Under
In Camera Lucida, Roland
his direction, the bride and groom
Barthes off ers the following
Vernacular Photographies
“Clube, passagem de ano. Nacala, 1974”
commentary: “Earlier societies
the midst of an age in which, as
managed so that memory, the
Marx put it, “everything solid melts
substitute for life, was eternal and
into air,” fotoesculturas and other
that at least the thing which spoke
vernaculars like them are an
Death should itself be immortal:
attempt to restore a certain
this was the Monument. But by
monumentality to both modern
making the (mortal) Photograph
memory and the photograph?10
into the general and somehow
All of this talk of memory returns
natural witness of ‘what has been,’
us to the question of history, to the
modern society has renounced the
problem of how to provide an
Monument.”9 Could it be that in
appropriate historical accounting
47
for photography’s vernacular
same time explore the qualities of
manifestations. This is no simple
vernacular objects, granting them
matter. As the proponents of folk
(as I have here) the same intellec-
art have inadvertently demonstrat-
tual and aesthetic potential as their
ed, it is not enough to propose yet
more privileged cousins? So we are
another, autonomous object of
already talking about developing a
study (the “vernacular photo-
history that contests traditional
graph�). This merely establishes a
boundaries and disturbs existing
new category of collectible, and in
oppositional structures.
the process deliberately reinforces
Perhaps we might do well to take
the very distinction between
our historiographic clues from the
margin and center that should be
objects themselves. It is interesting,
at issue. Expanding the canon has
for example, that despite employ-
momentary value, but what is
ing photographs, vernacular
needed here is a rethinking of the
photographies choose not to
whole value system that canoniza-
declare their own transparency to
tion represents. Why not instead,
the world they picture. Where
for example, insist on the vernacu-
much photography seeks to
larity of the art photograph (its
repress its own existence in favor
specifi city to a particular, regional
of the image it conveys, vernacu-
culture) and include it in our
lars have presence, both physical
historical discussions as but one
and conceptual. Apart from the
type of vernacular photography
stress on the dimensionality of the
among many? And why not at the
photograph, they also frequently
Vernacular Photographies
“Bar dos Especialistas. S. Jacinto, 1978�
49
collapse any distinction between
about enacting certain social and
the body of the viewer and that of
cultural rituals through morpho-
the object, each being made to
logical design and object-audience
function as an extension of the
interaction. As you will have
other. They produce what Barthes
noticed, in many of the examples I
might have called a “writerly�
have examined, conformity to
photography, a photography that
(rather than difference from)
insists on the cultural density of
established genre conventions is a
photographic meaning and
paramount concern. In other
assumes the active involvement
words, making, commissioning,
of the viewer as an interpretive
and/or witnessing these objects are
agent.
all, at least in part, acts of social
11
Actually, vernacular
photographs tantalize precisely by proffering the rhetoric of a
placement and integration. This would suggest that material
transparency to truth and then
culture, rather than art history,
problematizing it, in effect
might be a more appropriate place
inscribing the writerly and the
to look for methodological
readerly in the same perceptual
guidance. Certainly traditional art
experience. Although the photo-
historical categories such as
graph is obviously an important
originality, authorship, intention,
element of the way they all work,
chronology, and style seem
these objects are less about
completely inadequate to this kind
conveying truthful information
of material. Genre and morphol-
about their subjects than they are
ogy, on the other hand, seem more
Vernacular Photographies
“Interior do Boeing 707 da F.A.P. 1974”
51
“Avião T6. Tete, 1974”
Vernacular Photographies
promising as analytical categories;
Another key relationship worthy
at least they encourage a close
of exploration is the involvement
attention to the actual photo-
of the body with these objects —
graphic object and its physical and
both the body of the subject and
functional attributes (and this is
that of the viewer. This last
certainly an attention such objects
category of body must, of course,
deserve and reward). And these
include that of the writer, adding
categories could also lead to
an overt autobiographical element
unexpected ways of organizing
to his or her history. We are talking
the material at issue. One might
about a kind of anecdotal,
imagine, for example, a historical
novelistic approach to vernacular
typology of vernacular photogra-
photography, a historical version of
phies organized around the way
Barthes’s Camera Lucida (which is
they deal with their photographs:
written in the first person through-
addition, elaboration, subtraction,
out, following the author’s early
erasure, sequencing, masking,
decision to “take myself as
framing, inscription, posing,
mediator for all Photography . . .
multiplication, and so forth. Or
the measure of photographic
perhaps a more fertile approach
knowledge”).12 Michel Foucault’s
would be to trace common themes
“archaeological” approach to
(death, memory, family, desire,
historical analysis is another fruitful
childhood) or social functions
model. His examination of modes
(exchange, memorialization,
of knowing (rather than knowl-
confirmation, certification).
edge itself ), his concentration on
53
marginal voices (rather than “great
A whole new taxonomy for the
masters”), his abandonment of
study of photography’s history
evolutionary cause and effect as an
needs to be thought out — a
organizing principle, and his
photographic Wunderkammer fit
employment of elliptical rhetoric
for our postmodern age.
together result in a style of
As I have suggested, this kind of
discussion closer to a Borges
approach may come more easily to
conundrum than to a traditional
scholars already familiar with the
history. The advantage of all these
study of material culture. Defi ned
kinds of typologies is that they
as “the interpretation of cultural
break the linear, progressive,
signals transmitted by artifacts,”
chronological narrative structures
the analytical focus of material
of most modern histories of
culture rightly reminds us, for
photography, allowing objects
example, that these objects were
from different historical moments
once (and still are) animated by a
to be directly compared (and
social dimension, a dynamic web
compared on grounds more
of exchanges and functions, that
pertinent than style or technique)
gives them a grounded but never
and questioning any presumed
static identity. A number of
distinction between fiction and
focused studies have been
fact, interpretation and truth.
undertaken under the aegis of
Vernacular Photographies
American studies or anthropology that seek to recognize and reanimate this social dimension.13 Such an emphasis necessarily opens up the question of how one determines the meaning of these objects. My discussion of indigenous vernaculars, for example, draws on the anthropological record to suggest that things that look the same or were made in the same way do not necessarily mean the same thing. Photographs never have a singular meaning; neither, it turns out, does photography as a whole. Despite these insights, however, material culture has at least one troubling tendency: the temptation to seek the meanings of objects through a restoration of their original contexts and social
55
settings (in the case of vernacular
It belongs to the future as much as
photographs, now often lost or, at
to the past. It is not something
best, a matter of speculation). In
which already exists, transcending
this model, the presumed intent of
place, time, history and culture.
the artist is replaced by that of
Cultural identities come from
society as a whole. This desire to
somewhere, have histories. But,
replace one first cause with
like everything else that is histori-
another implies that the proper
cal, they undergo constant
role of history is to search for the
transformation. Far from being
true identity of objects, for original
eternally fixed in some essential-
or actual meanings found primarily
ised past, they are subject to the
in their past. (A parallel can be
continuous “play” of history,
found in a brand of semiology that
culture and power. Far from being
is content to see the sign as simply
grounded in a mere “recovery” of
a bridge between a referent and its
the past, which is waiting to be
meaning.)
found, and which, when found,
But identity (whether of photo-
will secure our sense of ourselves
graphs, people, or history itself ) is
into eternity, identities are the
a complex issue that cannot be
names we give to the different
entirely resolved by a return to
ways we are positioned by, and
origins (even assuming these can
position ourselves within, the
be found). As Stuart Hall reminds
narratives of the past.14
us, any identity is a matter of becoming as well as of being:
Most histories of photography up to this point have presented
Vernacular Photographies
themselves as transparent to this
and between photographies
past, recreating it not as one of
already regarded as excessively
those lived effects of historical
different from proper photographs.
writing (a “narrative of the past”)
Just as vernacular photographies
but as fact. Any study of vernacu-
themselves implode the presumed
lar photographies must of course
distinction between tactility and
trace the presence of the past, but
visibility, and between photogra-
as an erasure (an absent presence
phy’s physical and conceptual
fissured through and through by
identity, so must we produce an
differences and contradictions)
equally complex historical mor-
motivating the object in the
phology for photographic mean-
present. The critical historian’s task
ing. This vernacular semiology of
is not to uncover a secret or lost
the photographic (or, more
meaning but to articulate the
accurately, this photogrammatol-
intelligibility of these objects for
ogy ) is the necessary eruption of
our own time.15 A vernacular
photography’s history with which I
history of photography must learn
began, an eruption that promises
to negotiate the dynamic play of
to transform not just this history’s
being and becoming that Hall
object of study but its very mode
describes, for both itself and the
of existence.16
objects it chooses to discuss. Only by this means will it produce a semiology of meaning that can articulate the differences within
57
SNAPSHOT DIARISTS
Source: Photography A Cultural History, Mary Warner Marien, 2006
Snapshot Diarists
“Vista da igreja de Nacala, 1974”
59
“A alimentação, 1975”
The success of Look-Look maga-
to make pictures. The results seem
zine, which was founded in 2003,
less like staid photo-album images
rests on its active solicitation of
of birthdays and weddings and
informal and art photographs by
more like the tilted angles and odd
young people. many of whom are
coincidences of street photography
in high school. Look-Look has
in the 1960s and 1970s.
given digital cameras to teenagers around the world and hired them
While digital cameras, cameraphones (see below), and photo-
Snapshot Diarists
“Pretas à pesca. Nacala, 1975”
blogs have encouraged people to
implied narratives. Moreover,
create visual diaries of themselves
diarlstic photographers do not
and their own activities, these
insist on a particular interpretation.
efforts tend to render an uncom-
As Craig Garrett observed. diarists
plicated view of reality. Diaristic
avoid contemporary political issues
photography, on the other hand.
by turning inward. They seem to
sets out clues to subjective feelings
say, “this is my life, my observa-
in pictures with indefinite and
tion, my reality.”
61
The diarists’ procedures may
independent narrative in the mind
seem akin to the literary or
of the viewer. Noting a comparable
cinematic use of metaphor to
mindset underlying Anna Gaskell’s
suggest inner feelings, but the
photographs, art historian Claire
diaristic photograph is even more
Daigle detected a diaristic mode of
open-ended. It does not stand for
narration, but one that is “distinct-
states of mind that elude descrip-
ly impersonal,“ signaling “a shift
tion: rather, it invites the viewer to
away from the subjective to the
engage the image and construct a
demonstrative.” So-called reality
narrative from his or he experi-
television, which features ordinary
ence. Where photobloggers and
people doing or saying mundane
cameraphone users expect to
and extraordinary things, may have
communicate through their
encouraged diaristic photography,
pictures. diaristic photographers
but it cannot account for its cool
hope to spark a reaction or an
tone and “whatever” attitude.
Snapshot Diarists
“Subida às palmeiras, 1975”
63
Snapshot Diarists
65
NOTES
Chapter Vernacular Photographies, from page 23 to 53
Notes
1.
See Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 43, 52, 53.
2.
Craig Owens, “Detachment, from the Parergon,” October 9 (Summer 1979), 49.
3.
In terms of reproductions in photographic histories, the image is consistently privileged
over a daguerreotype’s casing, not only in the various editions of Newhall’s The History
of Photography (1949–1982), but also in the much more recent Bates Lowry and Isabel
Barret Lowry, The Silver Canvas: Daguerreotype Masterpieces from the J. Paul Getty
Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1998).
4.
See Charles Sanders Peirce, “Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs” (c.1897–1903),
in Justus Buchler, ed., Philosophical Writings of Peirce (New York: Dover, 1955), 98–119,
and my commentary on Peirce’s philosophy in Burning with Desire: The Conception of
Photography (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), 197–198.
5.
Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (London: Paladin, 1973), 90.
6.
See Heinz and Bridget Henisch, The Painted Photograph, 1839–1914: Origins,
Techniques, Aspirations (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996).
7.
See Jessica H. Foy and Karal Ann Marling, eds., The Arts and the American Home,
1890–1930 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994), and Kenneth L. Ames,
Death in the Drawing Room, and Other Tales of Victorian Culture (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1992).
8.
See Ed Barber, “High Street Views,” and Timothy Flach, “Wedding Work,” Ten.8
13 (1984), 2–6, 17–19, respectively.
67
9.
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), 93. See also Michael Roth with Claire Lyons and
Charles Merewether, Irresistible Decay: Ruins Reclaimed (Los Angeles: Getty Research
Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1997).
10. The phrase comes from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist
Party” (1848), as reproduced in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader
(New York: Norton, 1978), 476.
11. See the commentary on Barthes’s notion of the “writerly” text in Terence Hawkes,
Structuralism and Semiotics (London: Methuen, 1977), 114–115.
12. Barthes, Camera Lucida, 8–9.
13. See, for example, Marsha Peters and Bernard Mergen, “‘Doing the Rest’: The Uses
of Photographs in American Studies,” American Quarterly 29 (1977), 280–303,
and Christopher Musello, “Studying the Home Mode: An Exploration of Family
Photography and Visual Communications,” Studies in Visual Communications 6:1
(Spring 1980), 23–42.
14. Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Jonathan Rutherford, ed., Identity:
Community, Culture, Difference (New York: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990), 225.
15. Both the phrase (l’intelligible de notre temps) and the as- piration are borrowed from
Roland Barthes; see Jonathan Culler, Roland Barthes (New York: Oxford University Press,
1983), 16–17.
Notes
16. As Gayatri Spivak puts it, “The sign cannot be taken as a homogeneous unit bridging
an origin (referent) and an end (meaning), as ‘semiology,’ the study of signs, would have it.
The sign must be studied ‘under erasure,’ always already inhabited by the trace of another
sign which never appears as such. ‘Semiology’ must give way to ‘gramma- tology.’ ”See
Gayatri Spivak, “Translator’s Preface,” in Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri
Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), XXXIX.
This essay incorporates a revised version of Photography’s Objects, exhibition catalogue (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Art Museum, 1997), as well as elements of “Evidence of a Novel Kind: Photography as Trace,” Camerawork: A Journal of the Photographic Arts 23:1 (Spring–Summer 1996), 4–7, and “Touché: Photography, Touch, Vision,” Photofile 47 (March 1996), 6–13. It first appeared in History of Photography 24:2 (Summer 2000).
69
Notes
71