TY - JOUR

T1 - Looking at the Family Photo Album

T2 - A resumed theoretical discussion of why and how

AU - Sandbye, Mette

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Having been the most widespread practice of photographysince the late 19th century, it is only in the recent fewdecades that family photography has come into focus ofacademic attention. Scholars working with family albumshave mainly come from anthropology, whereas scholarsfrom the aesthetical fields, art history, photography studies,and cultural studies have been more hesitant about how toapproach such a material. Using three family photo albumsfrom the late 1960s and onwards as examples, the goalof this paper is to underline that family photos containemotional, psychological, and affective qualities that reachfurther than the individual owner and that should be putforward, also within the fields of aesthetics and humanities.Family photo albums are about social and emotional communication,they can be interpreted as ways of understandingand coming to terms with life, and at the same timethey document more sociological aspects of daily lives,that we do not have access to from other historical sources.The paper suggests a theoretical framing as a combinationof now ‘‘classical’’ photography theory and more recentcultural theory in order to highlight the possible interpretativefindings in an analysis of family photography.

AB - Having been the most widespread practice of photographysince the late 19th century, it is only in the recent fewdecades that family photography has come into focus ofacademic attention. Scholars working with family albumshave mainly come from anthropology, whereas scholarsfrom the aesthetical fields, art history, photography studies,and cultural studies have been more hesitant about how toapproach such a material. Using three family photo albumsfrom the late 1960s and onwards as examples, the goalof this paper is to underline that family photos containemotional, psychological, and affective qualities that reachfurther than the individual owner and that should be putforward, also within the fields of aesthetics and humanities.Family photo albums are about social and emotional communication,they can be interpreted as ways of understandingand coming to terms with life, and at the same timethey document more sociological aspects of daily lives,that we do not have access to from other historical sources.The paper suggests a theoretical framing as a combinationof now ‘‘classical’’ photography theory and more recentcultural theory in order to highlight the possible interpretativefindings in an analysis of family photography.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Photography, family album, cultural studies

KW - photography

KW - family photography

M3 - Journal article

VL - 2014

JO - Journal of Aesthetics and Culture

JF - Journal of Aesthetics and Culture

SN - 2000-4214

IS - 6

ER -