Some thoughts on snapshots.

[Chilidog]

Over the past few months, I have been, as time allows, taken up the task of scanning into digital format the many, many, many family photos that have been entrusted to me after my Mother’s passing.

I’ve started with the 20 odd boxes or so of slides dating from 1949 through the late 1970’s. (I am currently going through some shots from the early 50’s shot on beautiful Kodachrome) I spent way too much time on the first box experimenting with different scanner settings and such. I have now finally settled into a work flow. I use the slide frame holder that came with the v750. I give each slide a quick dusting with canned air and scan them in for a TIFF image file size of about 4.5 mb. This gives me sufficient resolution and detail, yet is fast enough that I can actually make some headway into this project.

At first I was selective about the images I scanned, devoting too much time to perfect the digital image, but after I settled on the processes, I started to scan all of them, regardless of the quality. I found that this fit into my overall philosophy that each image, regardless of how trivial the subject, or poorly executed the shot, represented a conscious expression of value by the photographer (usually my dad).

By expression of value, I mean the conscious recognition of the subject as something unique and worthy of being recorded. Considering the time effort and expense of taking and developing film, especially “back in the day,” I think that this is worthy of being preserved to the best of my ability.

I do recognize that this value is primarily for me and my family. Unlike more generalized artistic expressions, snapshot photographs of a bunch of people standing in stiff poses has very limited appeal outside of the narrow confines of relativity ;)

On the other hand, the contextual elements of the shots that reveal clues about life back then: The picnic shots when my uncle was on leave from the army, the interior house shot that shows the old cast iron kitchen sink, The Christmas tree from 1951, The construction shots of the house as my dad moved his new family from the city to the suburbs. The cars, the clothes, the cheesy vacation tourist attractions. All of these add up, and (I feel) expand the values of the images.

Once I get the bulk of them scanned in, I would like to go back and redo some of the better images, clean them up, remove them from the old warped cardboard mounts and rescan them at higher resolution.

I guess my point to this rambling post is that you don’t always need to be a skilled photographer with expensive equipment to make images worthy of appreciation.

[Ari]

Agreed; however, you're also right when you say that the photos have much more value to immediate family.
It certainly is a worthy project, and one where strict technical standards should not apply, otherwise you would relegate many important memories to the dustbin, as well as lose a connection to your own past.
That being said, one of my visions of hell is working at a 1-hour photo lab, where the only photos you get are of tourists standing in front of various landmarks.
Good luck!

[Peter De Smidt]

I have a good-sized collection of artistic photographs, including some by famous people. They're very beautiful. However, if there was a fire, and I only had time to save either my collection of art photographs or the pictures of my family, I'd save the latter without a second thought.

[deadpan]

If interested, Allan Sekula's 'Meditations on a Triptych' touches on many aspects of the snapshot, along with his excellent 'Reading an Archive'.

[Jay DeFehr]

I think the term snapshot has outlived its usefulness, if it was ever useful. If the term is meant to refer to photographers according to their intentions (artistic, or not), then it's not useful, not only because it eliminates the viewer as a determinant factor, but how do we make a distinction between the intentions of one person photographing a family member, and another? What is the intentional threshold requirement for attaining the status of art as opposed to snapshot? The quality of the work produced is no more useful as a determinant, because it becomes a circular argument; if it's intentionally crappy, it's art, but if it's accidentally crappy, it's a snapshot. So, either all photography is, or is not art, or the photographer plays no part in the determination. I'm inclined to sympathize with the latter proposition, which begs the question; if not the photographer, then whom? It's an old and stale argument, and I just wanted to say I don't like the term snapshot when used to rule a photo out of artistic consideration.

[danotranto]

best is when you start taking snapshots with an 8x10;)

[Ben Hopson]

Two years ago I did pretty much the same thing with photographs and film my mother had; some of it having been passed down to her from as far back as sometime in the mid to late 1800's. I am fortunate enough to have both a Scitex Eversmart Supreme and a Nikon Supercoolscan 9000 ED and was able to produce quality scans of the film and prints. It took about 9 months to scan, do restoration, post processing and make prints for myself and family members. I feel that old photographs like these have great historical value. If not preserved they will eventually be gone forever and it is, at least for me, good to be able to look at images of ancestors I never knew and those of people and events that were recognizable as part of my own past. I never gave this much thought until my mother passed on and I am so glad I had the opportunity to take the photographs and film and see to it that at least a future generation or more will have them.

I think that the type of images Chillidog is speaking of have priceless historical, documentary value on a familial level and that few if any were made with any kind of artistic value or purpose in mind at the time of the exposure. Personally I do not feel that it matters at all as long as people and events are recognizable. It is nice when the film or photograph is of high quality to begin with, but you have to work with what you have.