Vernacular photography

The term vernacular photography is used in several related senses. Each is in one way or another meant to contrast with received notions of fine-art photography.^[1][2] Vernacular photography is also distinct from both found photography and amateur photography. The term originated among academics and curators, but has moved into wider usage.

History and usage of the term

Current thinking about vernacular photography was anticipated as early as 1964 by John Szarkowski, director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1962 until 1991.^[3] In his book The Photographer’s Eye, Szarkowski proposed to recognize what he called “functional photography”^[4] alongside the traditional category of fine-art photography; his point was that all photography could possess the merits he sought.^[5] Examples in Szarkowski's book and the exhibition it was based on^[6] included ordinary snapshots, magazine photos, studio portraiture, and specialized documentary work by anonymous professionals.

The current wave of interest began in 2000, with a “seminal”^[7] essay, “Vernacular Photographies,” by the art historian and curator Geoffrey Batchen.^[8] Batchen used the term vernacular photography to refer to “what has always been excluded from photography’s history: ordinary photographs, the ones made or bought (or sometimes bought and then made over) by everyday folk from 1839 until now, the photographs that preoccupy the home and the heart but rarely the museum or the academy.” Batchen had in mind a wide range of photographies made by or for ordinary people, including intentional art and the work of certain professionals: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, snapshots and snapshot albums, “panoramas of church groups, wedding pictures, formal portraits of the family dog. . . . To these examples could be added a multitude of equally neglected indigenous genres and practices, from gilt Indian albumen prints, to American painted and framed tintypes, to Mexican fotoescultura, to Nigerian ibeji images.”^[9][11]

The Museum of Modern Art currently distinguishes vernacular photography from both fine-art photography and professional photography, singling out snapshots in particular: it defines vernacular photography as “[i]mages by amateur photographers of everyday life and subjects, commonly in the form of snapshots. The term is often used to distinguish everyday photography from fine art photography.”^[12] Similarly, the Ackland Art Museum (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) defines vernacular photographs as “those that are made by individuals, typically presumed to be non-artists, for a wide variety of reasons, including snapshots of everyday subjects taken for personal pleasure.”^[13]

In a second definition elsewhere on its website, the Museum of Modern Art broadens vernacular photography to include all manner of non-art photographs made “for a huge range of purposes, including commercial, scientific, forensic, governmental, and personal.”^[14] The Art Institute of Chicago agrees, referring to vernacular photography as “those countless ordinary and utilitarian pictures made for souvenir postcards, government archives, police case files, pin-up posters, networking Web sites, and the pages of magazines, newspapers, or family albums.”^[15]

All the usages broadly carry on Batchen’s rethinking of the underlying photographic material.^[16] Like the related terms vernacular music and vernacular architecture, “vernacular photography” under all interpretations not only directs attention to forms that until recently have been ignored by “the museum or the academy,”^[9] but also puts the focus on the social contexts in which the photos were originally made.^[17] At least in critical and curatorial use,^[18] the term largely supersedes the earlier “found photography,” which was most concerned with the eye of the finder. “Found photos” were aesthetic recontextualizations or reinterpretations by artists.^[19] By contrast, the current “vernacular photos” are not being taken out of context or reinterpreted, and in most cases they claim no aesthetic value; they simply document some presumably overlooked aspect of social or photo history.^{[20][21][22][23]}

Vernacular photography is also to be distinguished from amateur photography. While vernacular photography is generally situated outside received art categories (though where the lines are drawn may vary),^{[9][12][13][14][15]} “amateur photography” contrasts with “professional photography”: “[A]mateur [photography] simply means that you make your living doing something else"^[24] (see also Photographer).

Vernacular photography in museums

Museums in the United States have been exhibiting snapshots since 1998.^[25] Snapshots and related genres are now commonly billed and discussed as vernacular photography.^{[26][27][28][29]}

The American collector Peter J. Cohen^[30] currently dominates vernacular photography in U.S. museums.^[31][32][33] Major museum exhibitions have not yet been mounted outside the United States.

Major museum exhibitions

Museum exhibitions highlighting vernacular photography have included:

• 1998: "Snapshots: The Photography of Everyday Life" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art^[34]
• 2000: "Other Pictures: Vernacular Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art^[35]
• 2007: "The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888–1978: From the Collection of Robert E. Jackson" at the National Gallery of Art.^[36]
• 2015–2016: "Unfinished Stories: Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Collection" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston^[37]
• 2017: "Representing: Vernacular Photographs of, by, and for African Americans" at the Portland Art Museum^[26]
• 2019: "Poetics of the Everyday: Amateur Photography, 1890–1970" at the Saint Louis Art Museum^[38]
• 2019–2020: "Lost and Found: Stories for Vernacular Photographs" at the Ackland Art Museum^[27]

See also

• Found photography
• Snapshot (photography)
• Snapshot aesthetic

References

1. Bell, Kim (2020). Good Pictures: A History of Popular Photography. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-1503608665. [T]he category of the vernacular is defined mostly by what it excludes: fine art.
2. Comments by Douglas R. Nickel (September 1, 2000). "Vernacular Photographies: Responses to a Questionnaire". History of Photography. 24 (3): 229. doi:10.1080/03087298.2000.10443412. S2CID 262301230. If a photograph wasn't made for non-utiliarian, self-consciously expressive reasons that allow it to be designated 'art,' it devolves to this grab-bag left-over category designated 'vernacular.' Vernacular is thus defined not by what it is, but what it isn't.
3. Zuromskis, Catherine (2010). "Chapter 17: Snapshot Photography: History, Theory, Practice, and Esthetics". In Bull, Stephen (ed.). A Companion to Photography. London: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 300. ISBN 978-1405195843. Yet, ironically, it was the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) photography curator John Szarkowski, often chastised by modern critics as for his refusal to acknowledge photogaphy's vital social function, who first explored the esthetic value of snapshots and, more broadly, vernacular photography in fine art contexts.
4. Szarkowski, John (1966). The Photographer's Eye. New York: Museum of Modern Art. p. 4. ISBN 978-0870705250. It is the thesis of this book that the study of photographic form must consider the medium's 'fine art' tradition and its 'functional' tradition as intimately interdependent aspects of a single history.
5. Szarkowski 1966, p. 6: “The pictures reproduced in this book were made over almost a century and a quarter. They were made for various reasons. . . . They have in fact little in common except their success, and a shared vocabulary. . . . The vision they share belongs to no school or aesthetic theory, but to photography itself.”
6. "The Photographer's Eye". Museum of Modern Art. 1964. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
7. Zuromskis, Catherine (2008). "Ordinary Pictures and Accidental Masterpieces: Snapshot Photography in the Modern Art Museum". Art Journal. 67 (2): 104–125. doi:10.1080/00043249.2008.10791307.
8. Batchen, Geoffrey (2000). "Chapter 3: Vernacular Photographies". Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 56–80. ISBN 978-0262267892.
9. Batchen 2000, p. 57.
10. Batchen, Geoffrey (2020). “Whither the Vernacular?” In Campt, Tina; Hirsch, Marianne; Hochberg, Gil; Wallis Brian (eds). Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography. New York: Steidl/The Walther Collection. p. 33. ISBN 978-3958296275.
11. Batchen has recently mentioned^[10] an earlier use of the term, in the title of a photo fair held in New York in 1998: “The 1st ‘Vernacular’ Photo Fair.” In the same conference proceedings, Batchen proposes that, having done the job of focusing attention on “what has always been neglected,” it now be abandoned: “[T]hat way we can entirely focus our critical attention on what photographs do, rather than on what they are, or what they were” (p. 39).
12. "MoMA Learning". Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
13. "Lost and Found: Stories for Vernacular Photographs". Ackland Art Museum. 2019. Retrieved June 16, 2021.
14. "Vernacular Photography". Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
15. "In the Vernacular". Art Institute of Chicago. 2010. Retrieved June 16, 2021.
16. Wallis, Brian (2020). "Why Vernacular Photography? The Limits and Possibilities of a Field". In Campt, Tina M.; Hirsch, Marianne; Hochberg, Gil; Wallis, Brian (eds.). Imagining Everyday Life: Engagements with Vernacular Photography. New York: Steidl/The Walther Collection. p. 18. ISBN 978-3958296275. Batchen's vivid delineation of vernacular histories of photography and the problems they raise not only alerted readers to new objects of study but also opened the critical discussion around them to new interdisciplinary methodologies.
17. Campt, Tina M.; Hirsch, Marianne; Hochberg, Gil; Wallis, Brian (2020). “Introduction.” In Campt et al. (eds.) 2020, p. 11. “The authors whose essays are assembled in this volume define vernacular photography by its social and ideological uses rather than by its aesthetic features. To this end, they seek to reconsider vernacular photographs in relation to the communities in which they originated and to reevaluate the agency of the makers, compilers, subjects, and viewers of these images.”
18. E.g. Campt et al. 2020.
19. Elkins, James (2011). What Photography Is. London: Routledge. p. 101. ISBN 978-0415995696. 'Found photography' usually means vernacular photos that have been discovered and reconsidered as art.
20. Shea, Andrea (July 17, 2015). "Why One Collector's Old Snapshots Of Strangers Matter To A Museum". WBUR. Retrieved June 18, 2021. The curators [of Unfinished Stories: Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Collection] say these accidental photos, along with [collector Peter J.] Cohen's other images, tell the story of photography in America that can't be ignored. 'We can't really study the field or think that we understand photography by limiting ourselves to the fine art world,' [Museum of Fine Arts curator of photography Karen] Haas said.
21. "Representing: Vernacular Photographs of, by, and for African Americans". Portland Art Museum. 2017. Retrieved June 18, 2021. Representing: Vernacular Photographs of, by, and for African Americans brings together studio portraits from an important North Portland family album, vernacular snapshots, and Polaroids to demonstrate the rich diversity of African-American life and experience from the late 1800s through the 1990s.
22. "Other People's Pictures: Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Gift". Francis Lehman Loeb Art Center. 2017. Retrieved June 18, 2021. Most of the photographs are anonymous and capture moments in the lives of ordinary people, often depicting celebrations, vacations, and gatherings of family and friends. Individual images were chosen for their eclectic, idiosyncratic, sometimes humorous nature as well as for their subject matter, with a particular focus on the lives and activities of women.
23. "Amateur Snapshots Provide Window to American Culture at Nelson-Atkins". Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. April 4, 2016. Retrieved June 18, 2021. 'This incredible exhibition of amateur snapshots depicts broadly shared aspects of everyday life,' said Julián Zugazagoitia, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell CEO & Director of the Nelson-Atkins. 'It highlights the deep cultural importance of photography, a visual tradition that flourishes today in images that are made and shared in a variety of ways.'
24. Langford, Michael; Bilissi, Efthimia (2011). Langford's Advanced Photography. Oxford, UK and Burlington, MA: Focal Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0240520384.
25. "Snapshots: The Photography of Everyday Life". San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
26. "Representing: Vernacular Photographs of, by, and for African Americans". Portland Art Museum. Retrieved March 5, 2021.
27. "Lost and Found: Stories for Vernacular Photographs". Ackland Art Museum. Retrieved March 5, 2021.
28. McDonnell, Brandy (June 28, 2021). "'In the Vernacular': Oklahoma History Center photo exhibit focuses on quirky, everyday photos". The Oklahoman. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
29. "The American Eye: Vernacular Photography in the United States from the Brownie Camera to Instagram". Kingsborough Art Museum. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
30. "Peter J. Cohen Collection". Peter J. Cohen Collection. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
31. "Who Are the World's 12 Most Influential Photography Collectors?". Artnet. June 15, 2015. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
32. Reyburn, Scott (January 9, 2019). "Finding New Value in the Work of Anonymous Shutterbugs". The New York Times. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
33. "Exhibitions". Peter J. Cohen Collection. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
34. "Exhibition: Snapshots: The Photography of Everyday Life". SFMOMA. Retrieved May 5, 2021.
35. "Other Pictures: Vernacular Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved May 3, 2021.
36. Anna Guthrie. "Amateur Photography to be Spotlighted at National Gallery of Art in The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978: From the Collection of Robert E. Jackson, on View October 7 through December 31, 2007". National Gallery of Art (Press release). Retrieved June 9, 2021.
37. "Exhibition: Unfinished Stories: Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Collection". Museum of Fine Arts (Press release). Retrieved June 9, 2021.
38. "Saint Louis Art Museum presents 'Poetics of the Everyday: Amateur Photography, 1890-1970.'". Saint Louis Art Museum (Press release). Retrieved June 9, 2021.

Bibliography

• Batchen, Geoffrey. Each Wild Idea: Writing, Photography, History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.
• Batchen, Geoffrey. Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.
• Cutshaw, Stacey McCarroll. In the Vernacular: Photography of the Everyday. Boston: Boston University Art Gallery, 2008.
• Goranin, Näkki. American Photobooth. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.
• Greenough, Sarah et al. The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888–1978: From the Collection of Robert E. Jackson. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2007.
• Hinde, John & Martin Parr (ed.). Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight: The John Hinde Butlin's Photographs. London: Chris Boot, 2003.
• Hines, Babette. Photobooth. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.
• Levine, Barbara. Snapshot Chronicles: Inventing the American Photo Album. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.
• Michaelson, Mark, & Steven Kasher (eds.). Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots. Göttingen: Steidl & New York: Steven Kasher Gallery, 2006.
• Morgan, Hal. Prairie Fires and Paper Moons: The American Photographic Postcard, 1900–1920. Boston: D.R. Godine, 1981.
• Parr, Martin (ed.). Boring Postcards. London: Phaidon, 1999. (Followed by Boring Postcards USA, 2000; and Langweilige Postkarten, 2001, of Germany.)
• Stricherz, Guy. Americans in Kodachrome. Santa Fe: Twin Palms, 2002.
• Wolff, Letitia (ed.). Real Photo Postcards: Unbelievable Images from the Collection of Harvey Tulcensky. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005.

External links

• "African-American Vernacular Photography" at the International Center of Photography