Vernacular Photography - My Group Presentation

Everyday, Everywhere...

Vernacular photography refers to photographs taken by amateur or unknown photographers who take everyday life and common things as subjects.

This can include:

Travel or vacation photographs

Family portraits

General everyday life

With improvements in technology, camera equipment is more accessible to everyone with regards to reduction in size, affordability, and ease of use. Particularly now that a very large majority of people own smartphones that allow you to take good quality photos, and share them on social media websites using just one device. 

This classifies us all as amateur photographers as we capture vernacular photographs of our everyday lives on our phones.

With vernacular photography, I feel that there is an element of simplicity and reality. 

For example, the photograph above shows a man looking at a woman that he is supposedly in a relationship with, or that he has just slept with. As she has her back to him, he gives her this longing stare which connotes feelings of love or lust for her. An emotion like this could not be captured in more 'staged' or 'posed' photographs because they aren't real and do not show true, everyday life in the way that vernacular photography does. 

Martin Parr

Martin Parr is a British photographer, aged 63. 

At first glance his photographs seem exaggerated or even grotesque because of the strange motifs, garish colours and unusual perspectives.

However he enables us to see things that seem familiar to us in a completely new way by presenting a unique perspective through affectionately satirical photographs of English society. 

He creates his own image of society - individual characteristics are accepted and eccentricities are treasured.

“With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society’s natural prejudice and giving this a twist” – Martin Parr

S    Small World - 1990

The Leaning Tower of Pisa from 'Small World' 1990.

This image comes from 'Small World', a book of tourism photographs by Martin Parr. It shows visitors to The Leaning Tower of Pisa facing away from the famous landmark, posing for a photo, and smiling 'falsely'.

This photo looks at consumerism in our society. There is the contradiction of tourist 'hotspots' attracting such a large number of visitors, however ultimately the quality of their experience is diminished due to the loss of cultural identity to tourism.

“We are surrounded by propaganda, whether it be in travel supplements, holiday brochures or advertising. I just show things how I see them” – Martin Parr 

This quotation from Martin Parr demonstrates the key theme in vernacular photography - reality. It takes away the idealistic views we have of travelling and famous places as shown to us consumers in advertisements, films, television and brochures. 

The Last Resort - 1986

New Brighton, Merseyside 1984

Parr regularly visited the coastline in England to photograph people on the beach spending their free time by the sea. 

'The Last Resort' was one of his first works that earned him wide recognition in the photography world. All of the photographs are taken in New Brighton, Merseyside between 1983 and 1985. This is when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and there was a very high rate of unemployment in the north, and an economic decline. The photographs capture the working class - those most affected by Thatcher's leadership.

This image shows the overcrowding of the seaside resorts at this time. Margaret Thatcher wanted to reduce the power of trade unions, and to me this image reflects the working class and everyone facing the same struggles of unemployment, lack of money and hardships of life coming together in one place - like a trade union.