Family photo albums - context is everything

I found the readings this week particularly compelling, since they are asking us to re-evaluate the way that we think about the seemingly private domain of the family photograph album. I decided to use this blog post to further reflect upon some of the readings in particular that touch upon the same theme, one of the context of experiencing an album. Deborah Chambers and Kirsten Emiko McAllister discuss how the album has a particular function within the context of the familial and private sphere, that colours the way in which the album is analyzed. By altering that context of the private when an image is seen from an archive or museum, these family albums are torn from the social context that made them meaningful. Moreover, this new context of viewing changes the types of stories that come out of the albums. This was also apparent from the workshop that we did during class. I also drew upon Martha Langford’s piece when thinking about how a researcher might experience my family album without the benefit of familiarity to the subject.

My pictures that I chose for this blog post are extracts from my own family album that I brought to class today. While going through the album with my mother and sister, I was coming at this album from a familiar context - I had seen many of this pictures before but still felt compelled to listen to my mom, telling me the same stories, reaffirming what I already knew about them. However, this time was different than in the past because I was reflecting upon this week’s readings. As Chambers writes, family albums are often devoid of any writing to provide names, dates and other contextual information (as mine is), which Chambers suggests that these albums function within an oral framework – the album serves as a jumping off point where, as Chambers argues, women take on the role of filling the story behind the photos through storytelling.

Taking this into account, I reflected upon my personal experience interacting with one of my own family albums, in my mom’s home – a private and domestic space. When I was looking at my family album, I felt that the photos in it provided a cohesive narrative, although perhaps not linear – all of the people and places depicted within the frame were of importance to me, and I understood who the people were, and what was the significance behind the changing locations of the pictures as my family moved from Uganda to Karachi, Kitchner and finally a few seemingly random recent pictures in Ottawa. When I looked at my family album, I was really able to understand the album holistically, as an entity in its own right. More importantly, I had my mother who was able to provide context, insight and extrapolations from the pictures. With my mother’s oral testimony, the photos were able to function as a whole to provide a narrative of my family’s history, that fit within a larger story about Indians living in Uganda and their expulsion in 1972.

This personal experience differs drastically from how one might experience the same family album when the context of viewing is altered, to that of an archive, or museum. The workshop that we did in class provided me with a glimpse of how a researcher might experience it, much in the way that McAllister experienced the images of Japanese families in internment camps, or the way that Langford tries to piece together an unfamiliar album. When the class looked at my family album from a pseudo-research perspective, they were unable to locate the pictures or situate them in time beyond a fairly large window. Furthermore, in this context, I found that the pictures became more individual stories, grouped together in clusters, rather than as part of a cohesive whole. This experience was similar to that of McAllister and Langford, who attempted to do close readings of the albums. With McAllister in particular, due to the images being stored without a physical album, it was difficult to analyze the images within the family context. Instead, as her article demonstrates, they were used to understand larger trends taking place within the Japanese community during this time period. As for Langford, although the pictures are stored in an album, without much contextual information, it is difficult to piece together the narrative of the whole album. However, in her case the physical album is able to provide some boundaries for thinking about the pictures. In an archive, my album would likely be disassembled, resulting in making the pictures even more individual pictures as opposed to pictures to be understood within their larger framework within the album. Instead of reflecting the personal story of my family as they made their way from Uganda to Canada, researchers would likely only look at the pictures as they fit into their particular topic of study, if they could even locate them in time and place.I felt that this week allowed me to gain a better appreciation for the context under which images are viewed deeply affect the way those albums can be understood.

Quote from Susan Sontag

A while ago we were asked to read Susan Sontag's On Photography and take a look at the quotes listed in the back of the book. I picked the following quote to reflect upon:

If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug a camera. - Lewis Hine

The reason that I chose this quote in particular has to do with the fact that I led the seminar discussion last week where we were discussing documentary impulses and the place of the photo-essay. This form of photography relies heavily on the written word to accompany photographs, so I felt that this juxtaposed with how Lewis Hine articulated in his quote. From Hine's quote, it seems as though he feels that photographic images are able to speak in a way that words cannot articulate.

I did a quick google search for some of Lewis Hine's work, in order to see how he employs language with his photographs, and stumbled upon the following link which contains Lewis' work along with original captions made by Lewis.

The caption that Lewis used for this particular photograph reads: October 1911. Lowell, Mass. Standing: Michael Keefe, 32 Marion St., been at work in No. 1 mule room, Merrimac [Textile] Mill, eight months. Apparently 13 years old. John Risheck, 391 Adams St.; Cornelius Hurley, 298 Adams St., been at work in No. 1 mule room in Merrimac Mill for six months. About 13 or 14 probably. Sitting: John Neary, 211 Lakeview Ave.; smallest is Robert Magee, 270 Suffolk St. Apparently 12 years old. Been working in Mule Room No. 1, Merrimac Mill, one year. Photo and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine

After reading the caption for the image, I wonder how Hine would feel about the value of the photo-essay, and if he felt that his work fell into this genre. From the above caption, I believe that his work fits in quite well with the nature of documentary photography, as his aim with his photographs was to bring awareness to child labour, a practice that he felt quite strongly against. It seems to be quite in contrast to his quote, but it leads me to wonder if he would feel the same way. Perhaps he would argue that, without the photograph, he would not be  able to tell the story of child workers in a compelling way. From this quote, I feel that Hine would argue that although the words may add to our understanding of the picture, it is the picture that comes first before the text. This is in contrast to our readings about the photo-essay which felt that the image and the text were equal contributors to our final understanding of the image.