Today Joe Loudermilk lead the f8 discussion focusing on his found family photographs and leading into a broader discussions of snapshots and family memory. Below is the narrative from Joe... Kodak Moments 1920 -1950 "George Eastman introduced roll film which allowed for small cameras that could take and hold many photos easily. With this photographic advance of roll film, he also introduced the first Kodak camera in 1885, the Brownie, "You press the button, we do the rest," which was Kodak’s motto. Prior to these small cameras, family portraiture produced by painters or professional photographers usually in formal settings were the only two ways to capture visual images of family members. Both expensive and often time consuming, and out of reach for most people. Family photographs can be considered cultural artifacts because they document the events that shape families' lives. Thus, the recording of family history becomes an important endeavor. In many cases, photographs are the only biographical material people leave behind after they die (Boerdam, Martinius, 1980). Joe presented two groups of family photographs. This first group of photos, scanned from old prints, were taken starting around 1920, of his dad as a young boy with his family up to his service in WWII.The photos were taken in rural southeastern Tennessee and the Taft California area.The second group of photos, scanned from found negatives, were taken starting around 1940 and ending around 1950, mostly by my mother in and around Petrolia California. The Kodak Brownies allowed for this visual family history to be recorded and enjoyed, shared and passed on, now to four generations of family." Below are just some examples from the set he showed Several things were obvious from the images. First, his mother had a good eye for composition and her work could stand as art in and of itself if published. Second, these like most family snapshots conjure up stories of both the family and the times. We also noted a related story in the NY Times "Photos Connect People to Stories"....a three part series on PBS byThomas Allen Harris where he invited people to bring out their photos and tell their stories. https://familypicturesusa.com Thomas Allen Harris hosts this three-episode series that explores American cities, towns and rural communities through family photographs. Each episode begins at a community photo-sharing event, where participants engage in conversation stemming from the people and places shown in their photos, then moves to specific communities to expand on family narratives. From North Carolina to Detroit to Southwest Florida, families introduce ancestors, parents and friends, keeping their memories and stories alive by sharing them. Family Pictures USA is a documentary-style magazine show, filmed before a live studio audience, that journeys through a rapidly changing landscape where the foundations of a familiar and idealized “AMERICA” are being transformed. As ordinary Americans begin to discover their hidden family histories, stashed in boxes in dusty attics or on old floppy disks and new smartphones, they will unpack more than artifacts and ephemera. They will re-meet their relatives and old friends —fascinating characters, brought back to life by images and stories —giving them a new home in our collective consciousness, and introducing us to a more nuanced and diverse story of our common history, shared present and evolving future. Family Pictures USA will mine this rich treasure trove of personal narratives to reveal roots, connections, and provocative parallels that will surprise us and illuminate the path toward a new America for a 21st Century. Finally, we noted a new book..."The Social Photo: On Photography and Social Media" / Nathan Jurgenson reviewed in LA Times on August 11th. from review LA Times August 11/ Leah Ollman / edited for space "Jurgenson, a sociologist employed by Snap Inc. (more on that later), normalizes the phenomenon of snapshot saturation by erecting a historical, contextual scaffold around it. The social photo fulfills a fundamental human impulse to document experience, he writes, an impulse that takes different forms as technology evolves. The tools we see with affect what and how we see; they shape our “documentary consciousness.” This has ever been so, but because digital images are largely ephemeral, they upend our assumptions about what a photograph is, and what purpose it serves. Social photography, according to Jurgenson, is more about appreciating the present for its own sake than compiling a permanent visual archive. Attributing a be here now sensibility to a practice that interrupts engagement more than it intensifies, it feels overly generous at the least, specious at best. Another innate impulse, having to do with defining and performing the self, also finds a ready vehicle in the networked camera. The articulation of identity, too, bears the ever-changing accent and grammar of new technology. The extent to which digital media conditioned behavior can be witnessed everywhere, as we press pause on the everyday bustle around us to better frame our selfies. The line between shooting the style in our lives and styling our lives for the shoot has become increasingly blurred. If this yields a sort of onscreen inauthenticity, Jurgenson doesn’t buy it. “The Social Photo” is grounded in his rejection of “digital dualism,” the notion that online and offline worlds are mutually exclusive. He scoffs at the term “IRL.” It’s all real life, he contends. The digital and material are continuous and interwoven. There is no pure state of innocence and integrity away from our devices. Those who proclaim, self-righteously, “I am real. I am the thoughtful person. You are the automaton,” Jurgenson says , are mere fetishists, romanticizing a false ideal, and maybe even profiting from the promotion of it — think digital detox manuals, the wellness industry and so on. “The Social Photo” makes for a lively and provocative read. Jurgenson peppers his discussion with references to theorists on culture and photography, Walter Benjamin, Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Georges Bataille and more, but manages to strike an accessible tone just shy of academic. He bounces his thoughts about the reflex to chronicle our everyday doings against Susan Sontag’s “photograph-trophies” and Roland Barthes’ “certificates of presence.” He discusses insightfully how we use social photography, but is less broadminded when assessing how social photography is using us, what losses might incur from the conflation of private, public and performative. He acknowledges that social media has reshaped cultural norms about exhibitionism and voyeurism, but dismisses as alarmists those who scrutinize the costs, individually and collectively, of our compulsions. Because the offline/online binary is false, his thinking goes, any toxicity identified with the digital sphere cannot reside only there, but is a reflection of larger social problems; it might be a symptom, but can’t be blamed as the cause. Which brings us back to Snap. The company employs Jurgenson and funds “Real Life,” his cheekily titled online journal about living with technology. He notes that “Real Life” is editorially independent, but it’s hardly necessary to claim the same of “The Social Photo,” when Jurgenson’s own glistening take on the networked camera aligns so neatly with Snap’s upbeat mission (as stated on its website) to “contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world and have fun together.” Also remember the exhibit at Pier 24 in San Francisco several years ago that featured "family albums as social art...it was called "Second Hand"
1 Comment
Everard H. (Rod) Williams, Sr.
8/20/2019 07:27:43 pm
Great presentation Joe!
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