Why do we love pictures?
A few thoughts to celebrate World Photography Day
Today is World Photography Day!
That’s an excellent opportunity for photo geeks to reflect on this medium we love. I don’t write about snapshots here enough. Still, I love vernacular photography and keep a small collection at home. I was delighted when Robert E. Jackson decided to celebrate the occasion with a series of pictures of people taking pictures on his Instagram today. He graciously agreed to show them here. I think they’re wonderful.
Robert looks at a lot of pictures, so I asked him about these images. He thought it was intriguing to see photos of people holding cameras because they subvert the photographer's gaze instead of seeing what a photographer might usually take — the photos’ subject is the photographer itself. It's an interaction between the person taking the photo and the photographer as the subject. Some appear to be "selfies"— or mirror self-portraits — and some involve two photographers. All of them are terrific.
Robert has no website, but you can see some of his collection here. He primarily shows his photographs on Instagram, which is one of my favorite feeds. If you like found photos, consider picking up a copy of PROOF: Photographs from the collection of Robert E. Jackson, published by Sleeper Studios.
I hope you like these. Let me know what you think. Thank you, Robert!
I want to hear from you: What first got you into photography?
There’s a simple joy involved in picture-making. It’s nearly universal, especially these days. Why are we so fascinated with photography? What does it mean to us?
I imagine that people have enjoyed picturing their lives from the start. These days, more people than ever use photography. That’s a good thing.
I was talking to someone the other day and said that photography was a “big tent” — there’s room for everyone and no one right way to do it. That reminded me of one of my favorite photographer quotes by the great Lee Friedlander. He’s right:
“I only wanted Uncle Vernon standing by his own car (a Hudson) on a clear day; I got him and the car. Ialso got a bit of Aunt Mary’s laundry and Beau Jack, the dog, peeing on the fence, and a row of potted tuberous begonias on the porch and 78 trees and a million pebbles in the driveway and more. It’s a generous medium, photography.”
The mirror selfie is a classic. We love to see ourselves! It’s easy to say that this kind of thing results from so much navel-gazing on social media, but people have taken their pictures from the start. You know, “I was here,” that kind of thing. Pictures solidify our experience of the world. They’re a way to make our mark — Why is that?
Does photography mean what it used to? Probably not. Technology is always evolving, and so is our relationship to it. Making pictures is easier than ever, meaning more images are circulated than ever before in the medium's history. We are drowning in images! That’s not entirely bad, but it poses some challenges. What do you think?
About the Collector
Robert E. Jackson has collected all kinds of vintage anonymous photography since 1997. In the fall of 2007, his collection was the subject of an exhibition and catalog entitled The Art of the American Snapshot: 1888-1978, which was on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and later traveled to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in early 2008.
Ransom Riggs included his photos in the 2011 bestselling book Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York City featured his collection in June 2013 in Snap Noir: Snapshot Stories. In August 2020, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art mounted an exhibition and associated catalog entitled Acting Out: Cabinet Cards and the Making of Modern Photography, which drew partly from Jackson’s collection of cabinet cards. The show opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in August 2021.
Jackson holds an M.A. in art history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1978) and an MBA from the University of Texas, Austin (1981).
I remember first getting into photography after my Mom put me in a darkroom class at the age of 10. Each Saturday I would go to Old San Juan and take a class with other kids of different ages. We would do a photowalk and then go into the darkroom to develop our photos. It was a magical beginning. Wish I had some of those negatives now. I became photo crazy after that. Happy world photography day!
I think we love photography because it's (arguably) the easiest medium to connect with. People can look at a photo and instantaneously understand the emotion behind it. That's another thing - emotion. We are connected with each other through emotion, and we as people want connection more than looking at something pretty (although the two can be linked, for sure.)