Vernacular Photography

Vernacular Photography• Vernacular photography focuses on photography of everyday life

and common subjects, and is often a style used by amateur photographers.

• Using vernacular photography, photographers can document an era through people and location and sometimes capture photos of shocking realism. It is sometimes referred to as accidental art, in that they often are unintentionally artistic and representative.

• Examples of vernacular photographs include travel and vacation photos, family snapshots, photos of friends, class portraits, etc.

Examples of vernacular photography

• This type of photography is often more personal and is a strong reflection on the photographer through style and composition. Unlike documentary photography, its purpose is not to document significant events in history, however, to represent the period and the photographer.

Examples of documentary photography

August Sander August Sander was a German portrait and documentary photographer – 1876 to 1964

He was described by some as “the most important German portrait photographer of the early 20th century”

Sander photographed subjects from all walks of life focusing on a range of professions and classes, and created an extensive catalogue of over 600 photographs of German people.

Sander first learned about photography by assisting a photographer whowas working for a mining company

He spent his military service 1897 -1899 as a photographers assistant.

People of the Twentieth Century, the collective portrait of German society,has fascinated viewers from its earliest presentation in a 1927 exhibition. Sander captioned each of his photos to suggest the fundamental role played by the individual in a balanced society.

Approximately 150 of Sander’s images are now pioneered at the metropolitan museum of Art since 2004.

Blind Children, about 1930–1931Bohemian, 1922Architect's Wife, 1931

Architect's Wife, 1931Member of Parliament (Democrat), 1928 Farmer from the Westerwald, 1910

Robert FrankBorn in 1924 Age 91

Robert Frank is an American photographer and documentary filmmaker. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville (Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian) for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society.

Frank became a professional industrial photographer at the age of 22 and in the 1940s became a successful fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar magazine in Paris. He felt, however, that the scope of the work was too limited. He abandoned fashion photography about 1948 and went to the United States and then to Peru to explore the expressive possibilities of the 35-mm camera.

‘The Americans’Frank secured a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John

Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1955 to travel across the United States and photograph all strata of its society. Cities he visited included: Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan; Savannah, Georgia; Miami Beach and St. Petersburg, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Butte, Montana; and Chicago, Illinois. He took his family along with him for part of his series of road trips over the next two years, during which time he took 28,000 shots. 83 of these were selected by him for publication in The Americans.

First published in 1958

One of the most poignant themes that Frank pursued in “The Americans” was the disparity of wealth in America, as well as the blatant racism. One of the subject matters that hadn’t been explored much during his period was the rich. He didn’t want to just photograph the poor and the middle class – as he wanted to paint a fuller-picture of the American socio-economic classes.

Bibliography:http://www.arthistoryunstuffed.com/robert-frank-and-the-americans/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/nov/07/robert-frank-americans-photography-influence-shadowshttp://erickimphotography.com/blog/2013/01/07/timeless-lessons-street-photographers-can-learn-from-robert-franks-the-americans/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frankhttp://fadedandblurred.com/spotlight/robert-frank/