Vernacular Photography

Vernacular Photography is concerned with capturing the everyday, ordinary and domestic.

Vernacular photographers can be amateur or professional photographers - it is one of the most popular forms of photography. We can say that vernacular photographs are 'accidentally artistic' or 'unintentionally artistic'. Examples of subjects can include travel photographs, family portraits and snapshots and school photographs. Vernacular photographs quite often serve as historical records of something, whether it be a place or of a person or group of people. To link to J. Bergers - Ways of Seeing and by appreciating the close link vernacular photography has to 'Found Photography', the unintentional artistic nature that is appreciated is usually from the the individual viewer who appreciates the image by appropriating a meaning to it that perhaps was or wasn't intended by the photographer originally. Usually, what is found is a shocking realism that we read from the images that are presented with in the form of places, locations and objects.

August Sander

1876 - 1964

"I never made a person look bad, they do that themselves."

Sander was the creator of 'Citizens of the 20th Century', a project that attempted to create a portrait of the German populace from the 1920s until his death. The project  led him to take a staggering 40000 photographs to fully represent the nation and he categorised them into social type and occupation. His portraits offer us a unique glimpse into the way German people presented themselves for a photograph at this time. Here's an example of a few of them:

"It is not my intention to either criticise or to describe these people, but to create a piece of history with my pictures" - August Sander

In just 5 photographs we can see the scope of Sander's work. We've covered portraits of an artist, a bricklayer, a pastry chef, and a soldier. All of these individuals seem to behave in a manner suited towards their occupation; the artist who looks longingly into space, maybe, for inspiration with paint brushes in hand; a rather large chef, again, holding the tools of his trade and a regimented, discplined soldier.

The Nazis confiscated a book published by Sander, Face of the Time, as the collection of 60 portraits proved that a 'typical German' or Aryan didn't exist. During World War 2 he fled to a rural area allowing him to save his negatives, but his studio was bombed in 1944 raid. 

Robert Frank

Born November 9th, 1924

Frank, originally from Switzerland, grew up in a country under the occupation of Nazi Germany. The oppressive nature of the state led to Frank's interest in capturing oppression in society through photography and film. However, he didn't undertake this task in his home nation - he actually photographed society in America and its people's place within it.

On moving to America, he thought that this wasn't a place of freedom that he was led to believe. His vernacular photography sees him expose parts of America that were left out of the fairy-tale stories he presupposed before arriving there. His camera documented the hardships of American society in the 1950s; the disparity of wealth and blatant racism. His most celebrated work can be found in The Americans.

Technical style set Frank aside from other photographers who followed a similar vernacular and documentary style. He used unusual focuses, low lighting and cropping that made his works authentic and original - perhaps setting himself out as auteur which I explored in a previous reading. The same can be said for his motifs and themes running throughout his work; he raises questions about class and race in his photograph's that were 'everyday' at the time the were taken.

Martin Parr

Born 23 May 1952

Martin Parr is a famous British photographer known for his unique vernacular style. Although the scope of his work has now gone on to international levels, Parr's earlier work, that came to be both celebrated and criticised, focused on examining national characteristics and the banality of everyday life in Britain.

Parr started out by taken photographs at small non-conformist chapels in a small town in Hebden Bridge. He felt he was capturing very traditional aspects of British life, through the eyes of someone who was from a middle-class background. He claims he has an ambiguous relationship with Britain, something he is both fond and critical of. Parr has said himself that his photography is surrounded by prejudice and hypocrisy. 

It was 1982 by the time he started producing images in colour, when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. Thatcher frequently commented of how great the country was at the time, and Parr's focus turned to a run down seaside resort near Liverpool. Against Thatcher's notions, Parr depicts an area in the country that appears to be in disarray - his images at the time depict working class families getting on with life and enjoying themselves, surrounded by litter and construction machinery. 

This juxtaposition provides a unique commentary of what society in Britain was like at this time.

The picture of someone eating a bacon sandwich is favourite of mine. On the face of it, it's not particularly attractive image. From understanding Parr's perspective we can read this image by postulating that it says something about British identity. The person in the image appears to be battling against bacon gristle - it doesn't particularly matter who the person is or what social class they are from, we all have the same problem when it comes to eating a bacon sandwich.