Examining photography and in particular the technological changes the medium has undergone. How does analogue and digital photography affect the notions of the photograph as an object in the context of the family and family photography?

This writing looks at different aspects of family photography and how it has been used, in the past and today. It will investigate the history and development of the family portrait from early portrait painting to modern day studios and the use the amateur photographer makes of photography. It will consider the nature of the photograph, whether or not it can be described as an object, and what this means. Barthes’ concept of ‘Punctum’ is underpinning this dissertation. It will then be considering the role that technology plays in photography, looking at advancements in the archive and storage processes. It will look at the changes that have happened for these processes and discuss what impact this has had on the ritual of making and viewing family photographs, by the family unit and others. It will be looking at the non-permanence of the digital image and comparing this to the analogue print. It will be discussing objectivity and how and what this means to the two methods of photography. The dissertation will finally be looking at the contents of the family album, what photographs are contained, what moments are being photographed and of whom. Alongside this it will be looking at the meaning of time and the need to store our memories, examining the idea of death and how we use photographs to come to accept this. I draw upon my own personal memories and experiences to help understand some of these issues.

A family album is, in fact, a culturally expected manifestation. Every household, family and individual is expected to have some form of photographic documentation of their lives. As Sontag (1983) states, “This is the most inclusive form of photography acquisition. Through being photographed, something becomes part of a system of information, fitting into schemes of classification and storage which range from crudely chronological order of snapshot sequence pasted in family albums” (Sontag, 1983, p.351)

The development of the family album can be tracked back to the pre- photographic era and to portrait painting. Before photography was invented it was a common task for a portrait to be painted. This was a commissioned piece, which was normally instigated by the sitter or somebody directly involved with the sitter. Due to the nature of painting, these portrait painting sessions were not spontaneous but planned events that took vast amounts of time. This involved the sitter being in a specific place for several sittings over a long period of time. The painter themselves would have undergone training to work as this profession and, as a skilled artisan, was mainly employed by those who could afford the skills they offered. These people were from the higher classes, the powerful or royalty, those typically throughout history with wealth. For this reason it is common to see the portraits of these people and less likely to see portraits of the common person. However, the term ‘social mobility’ has to be mentioned. It has been common throughout history for the lower classes to emulate the higher classes. This resulted in varying qualities of portraits, depending on the training level of the painter, the pay they expected and their skill. The quality of the portrait decreased with the social classification.

The development of photography coincided with the industrial revolution. This period in time saw constant mechanical inventions and the implementation of new processes. This time of mechanical fascination helped photography become popular, as well as becoming a new method to record images of the world. The complete capturing and fixing of an image evolved and helped to secure photography as a replacement of the painted portrait. The new inventions of the industrial revolution often became fashionable and popular, resulting in the same social mobility as portrait paintings. The wealthy first used photography, but as the invention became more widespread, and more accessible, the more people would learn how to use it and thus it disseminated into the other classes. This can still be seen today with new technologies. Digital cameras, for example, when they first appeared were expensive and only for those who could afford them. However, the increased demand led to advancements in technology and decreased the price and now most people have access to a digital camera.

Early photography was crude and less mobile then the methods we know today. Photographs were usually taken in a studio where the sitters were made to sit stationary for minutes at a time, and the sets were made to emulate stories or places of the world. As Marianne Hirsch (2007) explains “When George Eastman invented “Kodak” in 1888, his intended consumers were not professional photographers but people who had seen photographs but had not thought of actually taking them any more than they might have considered painting pictures, writing novels, or composing music. With the slogan ‘you push the button, we do the rest,’ the camera entered the domain of the ordinary and the
domestic.” (Hirsch, 2007, p.6) Eastman introduced the Box Brownie in 1900. The advertisement slogans that went alongside were such as “Operated by any School Boy or Girl” and “You Push the Button, we do the Rest”, which added to the encouragement of the amateur photographer. The camera had become compact and portable, and now was no longer just for the professional photographer, Kodak had made the camera available to the amateur.

By taking away the need for previous photographic knowledge the amateur was free to shoot what they wanted without the professional’s input. The amateur photographer was introducing many new photographic styles and stepping away from the professional conventions, meaning that the development of how and what was photographed was changing and expanding. Photography became the method used to record the
world and its contents in a manner that had not been seen before. Real images of real places and people had replaced illustrations and were starting to be seen by everyday people. Travel and documentary photography had arrived and a stream of photographs came along with it. The camera was also used within the home, looking inwardly at the
family. The family could now start to take their own photographs and leave the traditional family portraiture photographs in the professional studios settings for those extra special occasions. Now each family could, and did, record and document their own lives. According to Hirsch (2007), “Thus photography quickly became the family's primary instrument of self-Knowledge and representation - the means by which family memory would be continued and perpetuated, by which the family's story would henceforth be told” (Hirsch, 2007, pp.6-7)

With the arrival of these new processes, it was natural for the way in which the photographs were stored and displayed to develop. The wall-hanging, framed images were now placed alongside multiple framed photographs, on sideboards. These new type of images were also stored in photo albums. The photo album, in the family context became a collection of photographed events that each household had for the use of recording their own history. This consisted of the memorable moments that each family would have. I will discuss these memorable moments later on in the dissertation.

The development of a certain family’s photo album can be tracked like a family tree, branching off and splintering as new relationships and families are created or broken. To start at the very beginning I will look at the wedding. The wedding is the start of a new family unit, if we disregard what has come before this union, and look only at a newly married couple as a separate entity with no history. Of course this cannot really happen. It is culturally expected for them to have a wedding album. This album would be taken and compiled by a professional photographer. They would demand a sum of money for their services and capture the wedding day in a series of traditional poses. This album would become a precious object and separated from other photo albums because of the monitory value of the photographs. This is something I will discuss later on in this dissertation. At the wedding there would be numerous people with their own cameras, recording their own version of the wedding, for their own albums. These photographs are used to track one family unit’s place in time, by documenting themselves at a separate family event. These photographs however would not hold the same value, as it was not their wedding, but that of a relative. However it is special enough to warrant it to be recorded and placed within that family’s timeline of memories.

From this marriage, every point forward of this is now an opportunity to record certain poignant moments the couple progress through within their lives. As Batchen (2004) states that, “as if to fail to do so would be to let our precious memories fade into the mists of time.” (Batchen, 2004, p.8)

The process of recording a family’s history is in a state of change. The technological advancements have changed the nature of archival techniques. I will begin by looking and discussing my first encounter with photography and my early memories. Within this dissertation I am drawing heavily upon personal experience, because this is an area of great interest to me. I have become aware of the changes that are happening and can reflect upon myself and what this means to me.

The events when I distinctly remember a camera and, in some cases, several cameras present, were the ‘memorable occasions’ mentioned before. The presence of the camera was always significant in my childhood because of the reaction other people had to its appearance, either posing enthusiastically, avoiding it at all costs, or just ignoring it. Depending on age and location, there was always a degree of drama involved. When each roll of film was used up the film was taken or posted to a developing centre, and then the prints were anxiously awaited. I did not know what photos had actually been taken, and the wait was filled with childish impatience. With each film my family and I would sit and take turns at looking at what each and every picture contained and comment as we saw fit.

My parents have gone through many different methods of storing the photographs collected over many years of photographing many different situations, places and people. These include wall-mounted frames, self-standing frames, photo-albums, photo-wallets and digital albums. my parents then abandoned the traditional photo albums of my childhood and took to keeping a collection of printed photographs in the ‘wallets’ straight from the developers, in piles in boxes hidden away in cupboards. My parents now take and store all their photographs digitally and use digital folders on computers as their albums. So when I refer to the ‘family album’ I do not literally mean a photo album that neatly files away photographs in sleeves, but I refer to the overall collection, regardless of the different methods of storage and display used. All these types are common conventions and I would expect the majority of households to have them all, or most of them in some form.

The photographic image contained within a family album is of a certain type, not only in subject matter and theme, which will be expanded upon later, but with the feelings that are evoked. Barthes’ ‘Camera Lucida’ (2000) is key to understanding this, and I will discuss his theories further on in this dissertation. Meanwhile, the best way I can understand the concept is as follows: Picture in your mind’s eye your family, parents, siblings, and grandparents. Now you will be aware of details, you will think of features about your parents, whether your siblings have any children, how many, if any, aunts and uncles there are. The picture you are imagining is in the form of a photograph and, in a real photograph, you can take out the same details you just thought of in just the same method. Otherwise looking at another family’s photographs you will be detached, you would purely look at them and not see the details, the intricate relationships that lay just under the surface of the photograph. As Barthes (2000) explains, “For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture, one of the thousand manifestations of the ‘ordinary’; it cannot in any way constitute the visible object of a science; it cannot establish an objectivity, in the positive sense of the term; at most it would in trust your studium: period, clothes, photogeny, but in it, for you, no wound.” (Barthes, 2000, p.73) This wound that Barthes mentions is the ‘Punctum’. The Punctum, according to Barthes “... is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me).” (Barthes, 2000, p.27). It is poignant to the individual, the feeling or emotion that they get from a particular photograph only happens because of their unique relationship with the photograph. To take the same picture I asked to imagine before, the picture tells only you certain things, brings insights and evokes memories. You know what or who is missing from the picture if it were taken today. The Punctum that a photograph provokes is a stimulus, it makes us remember and thus makes us want to keep these images and store them for the future.

The archival ritual that we all undertake is setting about recording memories for future visitations. The photograph, printed from printer or negative constitutes an object and is a physical process. As Perloff (2002) explains, “What the photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially (CL, 4). As soon as the click of the shutter has taken place, what was photographed no longer exists; subject is transformed into object” (Perloff, 2002, pp.31–32) The nature of a photograph makes us respect it. The professional craft of producing a photograph from a negative to print requires skills that most people do not understand or possess. However this has slightly changed today, the digital has partially cut out the knowledge and expertise required, allowing the amateur to have a basic digital photo-lab within their homes. Because we link photographs to emotions and memory, to gaze upon a photograph is one step away from looking at the real person. This is what makes the photograph into an object, unique and precious. To hold a photograph in one’s hands instantly fills us with a type of etiquette, we know we must act carefully, respectfully and not to damage its surface. Sontag (1983) says, “In our reluctance to tear up or throw away the photograph of a loved one, especially of someone dead or far away. To do so is a ruthless gesture of rejection.” (Sontag, 1983, p.354 ) To damage the photograph is to damage the memory. To mark, rip or to even destroy a photograph has powerful ramifications and can even be a gesture of insult. Once a photograph has been destroyed it can no longer be looked at again, if it cannot be looked at then we can no longer use this object as a memory stimulus, so in effect the loss of the image means the loss of a memory.

In analogue photography the negative is a parallel to the print. It is almost as important as the print, for it is the essential part of the photographic process for making prints. A photograph and the negative have many similarities, but also some distinctive differences that are essential to their separation. This separation lies in the ability to see the subject the image contains, the realism of the subjects. The image is etched onto the negative, and then developed into a photograph. We cannot read, see, the image on the negative directly, because everything on it is reversed so we cannot use it in a practical method. We cannot see so we cannot use the negative for our memories. So we do not use it this way, however we still use the negative. The negative can never be discarded because it is the ‘backup’ for a photograph. To obtain a print we need the negative.

Nowadays the digital camera is ubiquitous. The vast majority of people have access to some form of digital camera, from mobile phone, to digital SLR. Digital cameras and digital photography utilise nearly every aspect of analogue photography and set about developing it. Whereas once a film was limited to thirty-six frames, a memory card can store hundreds or even thousands of images, depending on the physical size of the memory card, but still with greatly increased capacity compared to film. With this the careful capturing that was once considered with film, because it was known there was limited capturing capability, has now gone and been replaced by a ‘trigger happy’ culture. Benjamin (2008) argues that “Reproductive technologies, we might say in general terms, removes the thing reproduced from the realm of tradition. In making many copies of the reproduction, it substitutes for its unique incidence a multiplicity of incidences. And allowing the reproduction to come closer to whatever situation the person apprehending it is in, it actualizes what is reproduced.” (Benjamin, 2008, p7) The digital camera suits the fast-paced lifestyle of today. At the basic level a film negative and digital picture file are both very similar; if either one is destroyed then we can never gaze upon that image again, and experience the ‘Punctum’ feelings associated with out photographs. As this is the case I would imagine that the same care we have and hold for negatives is true for the digital file. But this it not the case, the ‘trigger happy’ finger is very quick to delete what is not wanted.

To take the industrial revolution, this was a point in history where machines replaced people in jobs. From this point the machine has been improved reinvented and put in place to perform the tasks of people. Post World War I and II also were other times in which industry and technology were propelled. We are now, I believe, in the middle of a digital revolution, the age of the microchip and processors. Smaller and faster machines have moved to a domestic level and the home is seeing these developments in products. The photographic industry has bee affected. The amateur user has the ability to use digital photography and save thousands of images. The quantity and frequency of pictures taken has risen enormously and I want to look at what this means to the archive process of the ‘family’.

Whereas with film each photograph would be used or saved, even if it were not usable, even a photograph with a thumb over the lens for example would be kept. In the digital world, instant review at the time of shooting means many similar images can be deleted. Also any image that a person does not like can be rejected and lost completely. Unfortunately the digital picture file is taken for granted. Because of instant view back and the ability to take hundreds of shots at one time people have become very quick to dismiss incorrect images, as they strive for the idealised shot. Perloff (2002) explains this as, “A set of clichés they have unconsciously absorbed; indeed they want these pictures to resemble those they already know.” (Perloff, 2002, p.36)

At the end of the photographing process the archiving has to take place. In the past we were limited to thirty-six pictures that we looked at one at a time. That was possible. They could be flicked through and the content could be remembered and spoken about. This has changed greatly. However, despite all the changes, one thing remains the same; we cannot speed up the process of looking.

The minimum amount of time to look at a digital image is the same as it is to look at a traditional print. The actual ritual of looking at photographs and albums is being lost. Whereas we could look at an album that was limited to the number of photographs it contained, we could spend time on a single print, and we could see the details in each photograph, the way a certain person is looking or the clothes that are wearing, or even details like the dirt on the clothing. Is it still possible to complete the same process with an album of thousands? We have taken to skimming through each photograph, just to say we have seen it. Because it is now not possible to trawl though the thousands of images in detail the act of feeling and remembering what has happened during a family’s history, the photograph is losing its meaning. The digital era has increased the speed in which we live our lives, the simple acts have had to be increased or be completely forgotten. Schmid, in Durden’s article (2003) jokes, “No more new photographs until the old ones have been used up!” (Durden, 2003, p.116) This is how Joachim Schmid explains the vast quantities of photographs being produced and the majority remaining unseen.

Computers have taken the place of albums, with each set of photographs being in a crudely labelled folder with the date, location and the images being left with the automatic name or number the camera has assigned it. This decreases the value of the photograph. Where once looking at the albums would be a social activity, sitting around a computer monitor has lost the ritualistic aspect. I believe this is because of the non-physical nature of digital photography as I mentioned before. Within film photography the process of photographing and developing and printing are all physical processes. Perloff (2002) states that the object is, “The necessarily real thing which has been placed before the lens, without which there would be no photograph” (Perloff, 2002, p31)

The actual object has actually been placed in front of a camera and the light that is actually etched into the film’s chemicals is then actually used to produce a actual image. The image has come directly from the object placed in front of the camera. However, with digital photography, the object placed before the camera records the light as before, but then the light makes no physical mark, instead it changes into numbers, a representation of what is actually there. This is the distinction between the reality of the photographic print and the virtual nature of the digital image. Where the light has marked the paper itself, it is indexical. The digital has made no physical mark, it is merely a representation of what was once there. The photograph is non-permanent. It does not exist until printed, and when it is printed, it is made from colours that have been instructed to be a certain way by a machine. Sontag (1983) describes this process, “While a painting, even that meets photographic standards of resemblance, is never more than the standing of an interpretation, a photograph is never less then the registering of an emanation (light waves reflected by objects) - a material vestige of its subject in a way that no painting can be” (Sontag, 1983, p.350) To me the painting of the past has been replaced by the digital, the digital is the “standing of an interpretation” (Sontag, 1983, p.350). How can a digital photograph, when printed, be of anything? Something is lost from capturing the representation of what should be, to the printing of this representation. Digital photography has nonetheless surpassed analogue in the consumer market and is used in far more situations by far more people.

The physical size of the image has changed dramatically, and with the quantity factor being introduced the value of the image is changing as well. The painted portrait before and today is expensive and limited to one copy. The photographic portrait is expensive and limited copies are available, their meaning is dually to do with monetary value as well as personal value. A photo album is limited in space, yet selectively chosen, either film or digitally the images are regarded with personal value. Photographic wallets consist of many photographs and many wallets. The number of photographs is vast and the value is less important. With the digital album the masses of images are easily hidden away, the personal value of a digital photograph is far less than any other method. However, I have to consider the new photograph studios that are used today. The photographs that are taken in these studios are digital, and these photographs are sometimes heavily edited. I have to come back to what I was saying earlier, about social mobility and fashion. It is now fashionable to have the family’s portraits or individual portraits taken in a old studio set up, but with a new take on the tradition. It is also expensive and these images are printed and hold the spaces on the walls. These seem to be the exception to other digital photographs. This is to do with the fact that because these photographs have been paid for and taken by a professional they should be held in higher esteem. This again has a direct relationship with the wedding photographer. As the material value of most of these methods decreases so to does the personal value.

I experienced this change in my own life during my early teens. The digital camera really started to become widespread and more affordable to most people, particularly my family at this time. The digital camera replaced the film camera in our household. There is a point in my life when my parents started taking all the ‘memorable occasions’ on a digital camera. These images were never placed into albums, in the traditional sense, but on to named folders on our home PC. This was over ten years ago, and at least three computers have passed though my household since then. I probed my parents about the whereabouts of these pictures and they informed me that with each change of computer the photos had followed. This highlights one of the true big issues of digital photography: its transient nature.

My parents now have grandchildren and this addition to the family has given me the perfect opportunity to study the effects of being born in the current height of the digital era, where the digital camera is ubiquitous. Again the quantity of pictures it is possible to take means that the number of pictures we take increases per situation. For example every time their grandchildren come around to my parents’ house the camera is taken out and numerous pictures will be taken of them. Instead of being limited to special occasions this happens every time they are present, and this is on average at least three times a week.

With photographs being placed predominately onto hard drives and not being printed out, the minor events of life are being recorded and stored with the major events, and both are being lost. Lost in the sense not been looked at, lost in the masses of the photographic archive. However, it may not be wise to become complacent about the reliability
of storing images electronically. If computer technology changes too much, there may be a point in time when the digital image files of today cannot be opened by newer technologies. The file format may not be recognisable. This is true in word processing software and it is plausible to think this true to happen in image software also. As technology improves and the previous hardware constraints are being improved on all of the time I am forced to wonder when, if at all, will the limitations ever be reached. We are pushing for more and more in the capabilities of technology and it is interesting to speculate for the future about what will happen. As people demand more from the current digital technologies it would be no surprise if everything changes. There may even be a new method that takes over digital and we will again be faced with a new process of archiving. As Schmid states in an interview with Wendy Taylor, (Flasher 2009), “Many of my colleagues think that the digital age is the end of photography. I think it’s the beginning. We really start working with pictures now. So what people did with cameras during the past one hundred and fifty years were preliminaries, but now we start, for the first time in history I think, we have a chance to look at other people’s photography” (Taylor, Flasher, 2009) There are those who believe that the digital world is a new point on the development of photography and just as significant as that of analogue.

When the film photographic market was overtaken by the digital market, the issue of printing became very obvious. Why did the family need to spend money on printing the thousands of images it collected when they could look at them from the comfort of their home and their computer screen? Despite photographic companies trying to get customers back to the actual printing, people were not particularly interested. The companies that replaced the film business with the digital market then found that when people had bought a digital camera they did not need any more services. A new breed of digital photographic companies evolved, old companies either developed or they disappeared altogether. Polaroid is a very good example here, it had cornered the instant photography market, but the digital camera meant that everyone could preview their pictures. Seeing its sales falling, Polaroid changed their approach and are now in the digital camera and instant digital printing market. Alongside this came, in-store printing, home printers, camera docks, electronic photo-frames and photo-frame key rings. The constant improvement in these technologies made the current cameras, printers and computers unfashionable. The consumer market is obsessed with having the best. So instead of the family paying out small amounts for films and processing, they are now paying out large amounts for cameras, computers, software and the occasional print.

With thousands of images being kept on computer hard drives, a generation’s worth of images are being stored away in a state where they are finite. Arguably a photographic print is also finite, but a physical print can be seen and kept. Its destruction would have to be individual. A computer hard drive can be destroyed in a number of ways and in a more complete way. To destroy one photographic print would involve more physical effort and mental determination than to destroy thousands of digital images with the click of a mouse or by the destruction of one mass storage device. What will happen when the present is in the distant past, and as archaeologists today look at items form forgotten civilisations? What will they make of our time? The digital method of storage is not dependable. How will it stand the test of time? If the images from the digital generation are lost, does it mean that history would be incomplete? A digital image can be displayed, stored, manipulated and transmitted all without the traditional chemical processes. It can pass from camera to printer without ever becoming a ‘real’ object. But for the majority of people does this matter? A photograph is a photograph, Bazin (2005) goes on to describe, “The photographic image is the object itself, the object freed from conditions of time and space that govern it. No matter how fuzzy, distorted, or discoloured, no matter how lacking in documentary value the image may be, it shares, by virtue of the very process of its becoming, the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model.” (Bazin, 2005, p.14)

The internet offers a means of passing an image around the world to be printed by anyone, seen by anyone and put in any context. With social networking sites, blogs, and personal websites the family album has been transported from the private to the public. With the Internet, however, the content of someone’s ‘space’ is only seen if there is someone interested in viewing it. The private family album is now being shown outwards instead of being restricted to the members of the immediate family. The social issues of analogue photography with its personal relationship with each viewer have been replaced with the anonymous digital page that is open to the anonymous viewer. The values of the physical and real have been lost due to the transient nature of the digital.

There are privacy problems and issues that have been associated with digital technologies. The ease of using computer software combined with the easy access people have to computers sets us up in ‘George Orwell’s 1984’ (1949). However ‘Big Brother’ is no longer watching us. The age of closed circuit television and the police state have been changed by the internet. The ability to monitor and collect information from the internet goes hand in hand with actually watching people. When photographs are placed onto the internet, how can anyone be sure that they are not being monitored? Of course this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it is know that even in at a personal level people monitor friends and family. Until people understand that we have no power to decide what images of ourselves are posted, they should be cautious about the Internet. Are we in fact starting to watch and police one another, via this means of communication in a digital panopticon prison culture?

I have looked at what happened and what is happening and speculated about where the archive ritual may go to, but now I will focus on what is being photographed and what is the content of the photographs found in the family album. It does not matter if it contains film or digital photographs, the content is still the same.

I mentioned these ‘memorable occasions’ previously and I will expand on this. These occasions are births, marriages, anniversaries, religious festivals, birthdays, school days, graduations, awards, concerts, family holidays, family accomplishments and other celebrations. Perloff (2002) says that “even today the amateur photographer shows nothing but images of happiness, lovely children running around on green meadows: he reconstitutes an image he already knows” (Perloff, 2002, p.36) These are all happy times and focus upon children very heavily. Children are pure and we want to capture and keep their innocence in the form of photographs. Batchen (2004) says this “... as if to fail to do so would be to let our precious memories fade into the mists of time” (Batchen, 2004, p.8) This is also true for every other photograph. They are used to preserve time, a way to keep time from slipping away, yet ironically a photograph, if anything, shows us the progress of time.

I will look at the idea of memory in the next section of this dissertation. The subject of what is photographed is interesting but what is more interesting is the photographs that do not get taken. What we describe as these ‘memorable occasions’ in each of our lives is not the most accurate term, for if we were to record every memorable moment in our lives then we would set ourselves about photographing and documenting every poignant moment. This would include all of the happy times, but also difficult times, deaths, divorces, legal problems, financial problems. We do not record these times, because we do not wish to remember. The photograph is a physical memory, a time frozen to be looked at again and again. The purpose of the family photograph is to record the growth of family. According to Batchen (2004), “Albums give the everyday people the opportunity to represent their autobiographies in artful combinations of words and pictures” (Batchen, 2004, p.57)

The married couple or parents are the instigators. The photographs act as a way to show off their success in bringing up children. Albums show the history of the close relations and the more distant relatives. A photograph does not have the ability to describe to the viewer who is in the photograph. We can read a photograph and see what is in its frames, but not who. This is the underlying theme that each theorist comes back to, and I accept and agree with them. As Bazin (2005) puts it, “all are agreed that the image helps us to remember the subject and to preserve him from a second death.” (Bazin, 2005, p.10) I can only hold an appreciation of what the photograph means when I relate it to my own experiences to the photography of my family.

The albums pass through the generations. What I mean by this is that there are many generations throughout a particular album. The people in a family’s album, say a grandparent, will have their own album with their own life experiences throughout. What happens to these albums when their owners and the people who own the stories of the photographs are no longer around to remember them? These photos become forgotten. There is nobody to remember those who passed before. Barthes (2000) nicely explains the point, in another personal way, “the only photograph in which I find my father and mother together, this couple who I know loved each other, i realize: it is love-as-treasure which is going to disappear forever; for once i am gone, no one will any longer be able to testify to this: nothing will remain but an indifferent Nature.” (Barthes, 2000, p.94)

The photograph is interesting to study academically. The everyday process of taking and then looking at photographs is taken for granted. The thought into why we actually take photographs is passed over by many. The key concepts that really stimulate my thoughts and are indeed very hard topics to comprehend are these: We photograph for the purpose of future remembrance. Are most of us aware we are giving ‘death’ acceptance, and admitting our weaknesses as human beings?. The photograph will be our reminder of the lost, it is a safety net. As soon as we photograph anything that time has been lost forever and can never be recaptured, but we can see and hold the physical manifestation that we have produced. We cannot physically interact with the time shown, but we can mentally send ourselves back to ‘day dream’ or pretend we can again. The present, as soon as it is captured, turns instantly into the past and is ready for us to look at.

I have found it hard to separate the themes of memory and death, it is nearly impossible to talk about then individually. Photography and death are the two of the main areas of my focus, and I believe this has to do with personal circumstance.

When leaving home to go to university I became aware of time, age and death. In the infrequent times I went home I began to notice how people had changed, and the longer I was away the more I would miss of people’s lives. This was especially obvious in my family members. I believe that being away highlighted these changes. I found it very hard to come to terms with the ageing of people, my parents, grandparents, nephew and niece in particular. I felt that I was missing out on times and realising that I too was changing, in personality but in age as well. I was aware of my mortality with the decreasing life of the others whom I cared about and was missing. With the increased sickness and death of my grandfather only recently have I begun to understand and come to terms with how life progresses.

Even though I have experienced death throughout my life, even a sudden unexpected death, I felt my grandfather’s death was different. I was aware of my own mortality and understood, within my own beliefs, what death is and what it means, and I am over the stage of childhood, when you believe that you will never ‘mature in age’. And I believe my parents understood that I had stopped being a child and were willing to divulge information to me about topics which are culturally difficult to talk about. I suppose because of my nature I was aware of these cultural taboos and pressed as far as I could on purpose.

One visit back home I purposely set out with a camera for the exact intention of photographing my grandparents. I knew the health of them both and was aware that it may be one of the only times I would see one of them in a semi-healthy state. I was aware that this photograph highlighted the fact that the impending death was coming. I was unsure of when in time, but it was a certainty. I feel slightly guilty thinking this way. I was confirming, without saying, that they were going to die. I was giving death the permission to take them, because I now had my photograph and my memory. On a side line to this I took the photograph on a medium format film system, not my digital camera. I did this on purpose, and since my grandfather’s death I now have a print in my room that I had taken, developed and printed for the exact reason, to remember him. Like Barthes (2000), “I cannot reproduce the Winter Garden Photograph. It existed only for me. For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture” (Barthes, 2000, p.73) I made the conscious decision to take my grandparents’ portraits on film. It is a more precious image to me than any digital file could be. This is because my grandfather has gone and he has indirectly physically touched the photograph and it remains after he has gone. Hirsch (1997) explains, “The familiar look, then, is not the look of a subject looking at an object who is looking at an object but a mutual look of a subject looking at an object who is subject looking (back) at an object. Within the family, as I look I am always also looked at, seen, scrutinised, surveyed, monitored” (Hirsch, 1997, p.9) I believe that this is true, even more so, when the subject is deceased. We need to have feeling of reassurance, that they are ‘looking over us’. This I agree works both ways: we see and we are seen.

I visited my grandfather once when he was on his deathbed, actually travelling down from university to his home. I experienced one of the most surreal moments in my life. The situation I was put into I had never experienced, but I knew that others had. But we did not dare speak about why we were all in the same place. I was confused and scared and I could do nothing to ease myself, because it was not acceptable to talk about it. The conversation was very bizarre and the topics were strange and disjointed, filled with silences that lasted an age. I took myself out of the situation many times and looked at it objectively. I wished for the opportunity to photograph what I was seeing and record the conversations I was hearing, but I knew I could not.

The funeral service was the same, I had not one clue of what to expect. Well this is untrue, and brings me to a good point about photography and knowledge: from looking or seeing images and films we gain a cultural collective knowledge. I had seen images and films with funeral services in but I had never felt the feelings I did when I walked into the church, a massive overwhelming sense of grief and utter loss, and emotions I could not control. Also embarrassment of acting the way I did. I must highlight that I my reaction is typical that of a western country. The grieving process is different in other cultures. The middle east for example it is common place to outwardly how the grief in public displays. Looking back I do not understand fully why I reacted this way. Sontag (1983) says,

“But the true modern primitivism on is not to regard the image as a real thing, photographic images are hardly that real. Instead. Reality has come to seem more and more like what we are shown by cameras. It is common now for people to insist about their experience of a violent event in which they were caught up - a plane crash, a shoot-out, a terrorist bombing - that “it seemed like a movie.” that is said, other descriptions seeming insufficient, in order to explain how real it was.” (Sontag, 1983, p.355)

I agree with this partially, I drew upon my knowledge of funerals from that what I had seen on screen, but this was after the event. The thoughts of ‘this is like a film or television programme’ never entered my mind and only after the event could I reflect on this. It was whilst writing this dissertation that I was aware that I had been to funerals before, onscreen funerals. Sontag says that these are violent events and I would push the argument that she is talking about emotional events also, as I believe they fall into the same category, be it a slight distance apart. Barthes’ ‘Punctum’ is ever more appropriate, before my experience of my grandfathers’ funeral, seeing a reference of a funeral was limited in emotion. Now to witness any reference of a funeral is a sharp stab, it “is that accident which pricks me” (Barthes, 2000, p.27). It is half-Punctum, it evokes the memory though secondary means. To see a photograph of my grandfather is to feel the full effect of Punctum.

Coming back to the desire to photograph the events I found myself in, I know that if I were to have photographed what I saw then I would feel the same emotions I had at the time, and I have no desire to expose myself to these feelings again. When I was thinking about what I would have photographed there are certain times I set in my mind and can remember, as if it were a photograph. And these memories I conjure bring back the emotions of the time. As Barthes (2000) describes this, “I was then loosing her twice over.” (Barthes, 2000, p.71) The photograph I had taken currently sits in my room, it acts as a reminder of my grandfather, and at each glance, a pang of grief and loss. It also hangs over me as the reminder of time. All photographs act in this way.

There was one point, when my grandfather was on his death bed when my aunts were playing music to him, to calm him, which was ‘Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner’ I now have automatically associated this song with his death and the same emotions come back to me when I hear this song. The one image that has fixed into my mind is of this moment. The childlike helplessness what this man, who I had looked up to and aspired to. Barthes also undergone this, having the reminders of his mother, “At the end of her life, shortly before the moment when I looked through her picture and discovered the Winter Garden photograph, my mother was weak, very weak. I lived in her weakness ... During her illness, I nursed her, held the bowl of tea she liked because it was easier to drink from then a from a cup; she had become my little girl, uniting for me with the essential child she was in her photograph.” (Barthes, 2000, p.72)

As previously discussed, the portrait photograph is a physical object and as such can be used as a tool for remembering the deceased. This tool is used selectively when people want to remember. The photograph as an object is a way to stay psychologically connected to the deceased. Because we cannot physically see the person we hold on to their memory and have a power over death. A photograph can be compared to that of a religions icon. The purpose of the icon is to have a ‘window in to heaven’ a photograph can act in the same way, they have the same characteristics, it is used to look at the deceased, and so look into a ‘heaven’ also. Perloff (2002) describes, “The thing about pictures of dead people is that they are always taken when the subjects are alive, all tanned, muscular, and smiling. The photo replaces the memory. When someone dies, after a while you can’t visualise them anymore, you only remember them through their pictures” (Perloff, 2002, p.40) As Perloff explains, a photograph is taken when the person is alive and the process of cataloguing life highlights the inevitability of life and death. A photograph shows us the passing of time and reminds us of our mortality. “Photographs state the innocence, the vulnerability of lives heading towards their won destruction and this link between photography and death haunts all photos of people” (Sontag, 1983, p.70)

For a long time I have been aware that photography is the visual identifier of death. But never have I had this strongly shown to me through photography, the personal nature of this photograph of my grandfather is why I now understand the concept. It is unusual to record the process of death and funeral ceremonies in the family photographic sphere. In documentary and news photography it is acceptable to look at outsider’s suffering over the breakfast table in a newspaper. It has become commonplace for us to see emotional and horrific pictures and film footage on a daily basis, but our senses are immune to a certain extent. However when the same subjects are placed in our personal life, it becomes a taboo subject that has to be ‘tiptoed’ around.

In conclusion of this discussion, I have found that photography currently is in parallels, digital and analogue running side by side. The issues of analogue and digital in the context of the family album and photography in the domestic situation are not comparable as both do not exist on the same levels. The digital has superseded in the commercial market, and so is the type of photography that has prevailed, leaving analogue, for professionals, artist and traditionalists. New technologies have made film photography seem old-fashioned and irrelevant, people’s views are often expressed to me about my use of film and ‘old-fashioned’ cameras. Yet to most of them last years’ digital camera is also ‘old- fashioned’. The photography market is that of the consumer.

The photograph as an object of remembrance, I feel, is irrelevant if the photograph is either analogue or digital. On screen, printed, or saved, the knowledge of however the photograph is stored is still considered important. I believe that digital files are open to quicker and rasher deletion, and are more exposed to loss or damage. Yet if the photographs are damaged or lost, then the pain that would go with the destruction of an analogue photograph would still be felt for that digital image. On a personal level, if I were to capture an image, for the purpose of memory then I would choose to capture that person’s image on film. To me this is important, the film is limited and was there, and recorded the light that bounced off them and fixed it onto film. The method of the processes is also more rewarding. From negative, to print holds a romantic notion that to me cannot be replaced. Yes, I agree digital is the newest method photographically, and I am willing to accept and use these methods, but I am also not willing to give up a roll of film.

Roland Barthes is focussed on finding salvation from his emotions in the photograph of his mother, and does so find it in the mentioned ‘Winter Garden’ photograph. I would greatly like to read Barthes take on digital technologies. Maybe he would not have had to hunt so much to find the poignant photograph if all the photographs of his mother were all in one place, in chronological order. This is a function that is happening now. Computer software is set up to categorise a photo library in one place, and even place that on to the internet. The ritual that we once undertook to find our deceased no longer involves trawling through physical albums, and seeing the beginning and end before our eyes, and held in our hands. Benjamin (1985) states that, “the inconspicuous spot where in the immediacy of that long-forgotten moment the future nests so eloquently that we, looking back, may rediscover it.” (Benjamin, 1985, cited in Lassovsky, 2008, p.94) The finger tips have the control and the screen hold the images for us to see, but as the lifestyle quickens, a simple click or request brings up the desired images.

I feel that the digital revolution we are within at the moment is part of our development, and what, in living memory, was common place and excepted, is changing at a very fast pace. This means that adaption is needed very quickly and very often. This is obvious in family photography and the methods or archive and recall. Until the methods of photography and archive stabilises and settles there will always be questions and issues over the matter. As Robins explains, “It is nececsasy to look at the new image technologies and systems from a social and cultural perpective and to ask what these developments tell us about the kind of world we are living in” (Robins, p.31)

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