capture continuous events and freeze them with an instantaneous image. The photographers of the two categories would chase tirelessly for worthy pictures and aim the targets without any hesitation. It also embodies that gunshot is a metaphor of taking photography.
Chapter 3, The Formulization of Snapshot, will focus on the concrete images of amateur snapshots, especially the accidental mistakes made by the unskillful amateurs.
The works of photographers Nan Goldin and Larry Sultan will also be taken into account in order to observe how their topics of daily life and aesthetic are relevant to snapshots.
Keywords: Snapshot, John Herschel, Kodak, amateur, instantaneity, shooting, bad photographs
iii
中文摘要
今日關於日常生活的照片和影像非常普及。數位相片以及照相手機的出現等，
已經使一般大眾所拍攝的快照(Snapshot)成為攝影中一種重要的美學類型。快照 的流行，或許可以解釋為什麼在近十年中，出現大量的針對此議題的研究和展覽。
更早之前，根據藝術攝影的標準，因為快照缺乏藝術性表現和創造力，所以在攝 影史的發展裡不被視作一項重要的類型。但是，快照也時常被指稱做另一種掌握 瞬間時刻的攝影，例如拍下跳起的運動員，或是災難發生時的重要瞬間，且可能 不是由業餘者所拍攝。人們是如此地經常使用快照一詞，但是經常忽略事實上這 個詞彙存在著不明確與含糊的多種用法。
因此有必要重新著手關於快照的根本矛盾。原先，快照一詞是指狩獵時的快 速隨意射擊，爾後是 John Herschel 在 1860 年用來描述快速曝光下拍得的照片。
快照攝影的希冀之一，便是將連續動作解構成一張張的靜止照片。不過，另外一 種依使用者定義下的快照，卻未必強調在照片中提供任何的凝止動態。本研究將 討論快照的演變，且將檢視不同定義下產生的快照圖像表現，以釐清這個普及使 用卻充滿矛盾的詞彙。
第一章：快照的誕生和演變，將首先探討快照的歷史背景和演變，尤其是參 與轉變過程的使用者與其態度。我也會檢視 Herschel 的意圖、他的科學背景，與 其發明視覺器械的目的。本章的另一部分，將會討論這個詞語的不同用法。當柯 達公司 1888 年起提供的嶄新相機與服務，使得攝影從專業與科學轉變到一群幾 乎不知道任何攝影科技的業餘者(amateur)手中。
第二章：在專業攝影中的瞬間性與射擊/拍照(shooting)，將會討論快照是如 何運用在戰爭攝影與狗仔隊(paparazzi)照片中。因為這兩種攝影類型，都意圖捕 捉連續性的事件，且急速凍結在一張照片裡。而且這兩類攝影者，不懈地追逐可
iv
能有版面價值的照片，毫不遲疑地瞄準目標，也都體現了攝影作為一種射擊的隱 喻。
第三章：快照的公式，聚焦於業餘者的快照格式，尤其是因為缺少技巧而意 外造成的錯誤。而專業攝影師如 Nan Goldin 和 Larry Sultan 的作品也會受到關注，
以便觀察他們作品裡和快照、日常生活相關的主題與美學表現。
關鍵字：快照、John Hershel、柯達（Kodak）、業餘者、瞬間性、射擊/拍照、壞 照片
v
Acknowledgement
這本論文若不是在眾多人的協助之下難以達成。首先感謝論文指導諾斯邦教授 (Prof. Valentin Nussbaum)的耐心協助，在修課期間以清晰和嚴謹的教學，領我探 索藝術史，和老師與同學針對各項藝術的討論，是痛快淋漓的腦力激盪。是您以 開放自由的態度容許學生進行適合的研究，也是您在我迷失方向指點迷津，以縝 密的邏輯點醒我論文的推理。也感謝論文口委林志明教授與邱誌勇教授細緻地閱 讀論文，提出眾多建議，使論文能有更加精進的可能。
感謝曾曬淑教授在我休學後成為美術所末代學生時，協助繁瑣的行政程序，
讓我得以順利進入藝術史研究所；辛蒂庫絲教授(Prof. Candida Syndikus)以身教 和言教，讓我明白研究者的熱誠和理性。黃蘭翔教授與盧慧紋教授的課程，提供 我藝術史觀看與思考的路徑。Professor Anne-Marie Bonnet, Professor Sergiusz Michalski 和 Professor Reinhard Steiner 銳利了我觀看的方法，去除偏見的理性思 考。
研究所的夥伴們，我尤其要感謝 Lydia 和 Ann,是你們時時鼓勵我、提醒我勿 忘初衷，才能今日到達終點。其他研究所的同學們，是你們豐富了研究所生活，
相濡以沫相互扶持，或許互吐苦水抱怨一番，或者開懷痛飲，紙短情長，請容我 不一一列舉。
最後謝謝我任教的學校，容許與協助我追求自己的學業之夢；感謝我的家人，
尤其是父母，包容我任性走自己的道路。
1
Introduction
General Background and Purpose of the Research
I have in my possession one photograph of my grandfather taken in 1989 by an unknown photographer in a touristic spot that I haven’t been able to identify (Fig. 35).
This color picture that has slightly faded out because of the decades that have passed, shows my grandfather, elegant with his waxed hair, his slander face a little bit restricted, a quiet but also nonchalant smile on his face, and one cigarette in his hand.
For me, this photograph constitutes a precious photograph, in which I can find a vivid representation of my grandfather. But for those who are not acquainted with him, it is merely an ordinary snapshot taken during a trip, the kind of picture that everyone would have realized since the Kodak Company democratized photography, when it promoted in 1888 an innovative camera and service.
This kind of personal, private, and exclusive pictures has awoken a new interest by the end of the 1990s, when the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art decided to devote an exhibition to the category.1 After the 1998 SFMoMA exhibition The
Photography of Everyday Life, 1888 to present, several other major museums
undertook an intense curatorial and scholarly investigation on the issue of photographs taken by non-professional photographers.2
1 The purpose of this exhibition was to address the historical, theoretical and interpretive problem of amateur photography. Before this exhibition, there were also some others related to snapshots but the amount of photographs was reduced. For example, the Museum of Modern Art in New York selected photographs from the files of the Kodak Company in the 1944 exhibition The American Snapshot; in 1989, the exhibition A History of Photography from California Collections, curated by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to celebrate the 150 anniversary of the invention of photography, contained some amateur photographs. In 1997, the exhibition Photography’s Objects in the University of New Mexico Art Museum, was held by the curator Geoffrey Batchen and addressed the function of amateur snapshot.
2 In the late 1990s, Other Pictures: Anonymous Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection, held by the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 2000, considered snapshots as anonymous masterpieces;
In the Vernacular: Everyday Photographs from the Todger Kingston collection, held in Boston University Art Gallery in 2004, as well as Snapshot Chronicles Inventing the American Photo Album, held in Reed college's Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery in 2005, focused on the usage, the
2
However, the term snapshot implies, since its first use by John Herschel in 1860, another aspect than a photograph taken by an amateur. Snap-shot means shooting quickly. It is a typical representation which is able, with the same speed as a gunshot, to catch a movement quickly. It is the picture of a moving figure that has been frozen, or the representation of a petrified slice of a continuous event. The term snapshot is used in this context to describe the great ability of photography to catch a movement and serve to distinguish this specific kind of photographs with those taken with a long exposure. In some articles, such as Carlo Rim’s contribution, the term was often used in the 1930s to make a comparison with posed photography, because the snapshot violates time, whereas the latter one collaborates with it.3 Thierry de Duve also defines the snapshot as the opposite of time exposure.4 For him the exemplary snapshot is a press photography which freezes an event such as the photograph Mai,
1968 (Fig. 16) taken by Gilles Caron.
If we compare the two different kinds of photographs called snapshots, we can find several contradictions: the photograph representing my grandfather is an amateur photograph that shows the stillness of the pose, whereas the picture made by the professional photojournalist Gilles Caron tries to catch the movement at its climax.
The ambivalent connotations of the term cause such a trouble that it is difficult to know what kind of image we should have in mind or what kind of aesthetic it is
collection, and historical context of the photo album. In 2007, The Art of American Snapshot 1888-1978 from the Collection of Robert E. Jackson in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, addressed the historical context, and the change of representation. Even painters’ snapshots were also rediscovered as for example in the exhibition Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard held in 2012. My intention is not to list all the exhibitions on snapshots, but the important tendencies addressing this issue. For more detail on snapshot exhibitions, see: Stacey McCarroll Cutshaw and Ross Barrett (eds.), In the Vernacular: Photography of the Everyday, Boston: Boston University Press, 2008, pp. 12-13.
3 Carlo Rim also designates snapshot as an amateur photography taking banal events of the everyday life. See his article “On the Snapshot”, in: Photography in the Modern Era: European Documents and Critical Writings, Christopher Philips (ed.), New York: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989, pp. 37- 40.
4 Thierry de Duve, “Time Exposure and Snapshot: the Photographic Paradox,” in: October, vol. 5, 1978, pp. 113-125.
3
referred to when it is used. It is thus necessary to readdress the issue of snapshot photography in a new aspect, in order to take into account its fundamental contradictions.
Literature Review
In general, snapshot has been commonly widespread since the innovative camera and service of the Kodak Company in the end of nineteenth century, though it was coined by Herschel in 1860. But we only have a small amount of studies on snapshot in the first part of the twentieth century, even though the phenomenon of intantaneous photography became so prevalent. For example, Carlo Rim’s argument in 1930 compares the snapshot with posed photography and also uses the term for photographs taken by ordinary people.5 In his short article Rim depicts the basic contours of snapshot and leaves some questions open. Does the definition of snapshot depend only on the amateur nature of the users or the exposure time? Can we still call an amateur photograph as a snapshot if it is posed with a long exposure time?
The troublesome issue of snapshot photography kept quiet till the 1970s, when John Kouwenhoven mentioned in 1972 that people were living at the time in a snapshot world. He claimed that the research on snapshot should not be restricted to aesthetic issues but should also focus on the social, cultural, and technological history of photography.6 A more in depth analysis can be seen in The Snapshot Photography:
the Rise of Popular Photography 1888- 1939, one of the rare monographs devoted to
this single issue. The book published in 1977 mentions briefly William Herschel as the first one who coined the term snapshot. It considers also that the snapshot should
5 Carlo Rim, “On the Snapshot”, 2007, pp. 37-40.
6 Stacey McCarroll Cutshaw and Ross Barrett (eds.), In the Vernacular: Photography of the Everyday, Boston: Boston University Press, 2008, pp. 11-12.
4
not be defined according to the exposure time but through the intentions of the users.7 The discourse of the book, quite similar to Kouwenhoven’s suggestion, focuses on the innovation of the Kodak Camera, the feature of the amateurs, and the photographic topics of daily life. But it is also one year later that Thierry de Duve made the distinction between time exposure and snapshot, arguing that the snapshot has nothing to do with a users-oriented notion.8
In general, amateur snapshots have been neglected in the history of photography.
For example, Beaumont Newhall, in the 1982 revised version of his The History of
Photography: from 1939 to the Present,
9 reserves only a few pages on the technological aspect of the Kodak Company and the rise of the snapshot, and mainly focus his investigation on individual photographers. For example, Herschel is not connected with the snapshot but is rather tightly connected with the representation of movement.Over the last two decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of publications and exhibitions on snapshot. Each research addresses this issue with a different point of view, but do not solve the inherent conflict of the snapshot. One exemplary discussion, such as Geoffrey Batchen’s, addresses the function of photographs as recording the memory of personal histories in Forget Me or Not:
Photography and Remembrance, published in 2004. The book echoes the theories of
Pierre Bourdieu on photography as a “middle-brow art”10, and Roland Barthes’
7 Brian Coe and Paul Gates, The Snapshot Photography: the Rise of Popular Photography 1888-1839, New York: Ash & Grant, 1977, p. 6.
8 Thierry de Duve, “Time Exposure and Snapshot: the Photographic Paradox,” pp. 113-125.
9 Beaumont Newhall, The History of Photography: from 1839 to the Present, New York: the Museum of Modern Art, 1982.
10 Pierre Bourdieu published the book Photography: Middle- Brow Art in 1965. He described that making snapshot was a ritual to conform the social norm. What makes snapshot is the function. In:
Geoffrey Batchen, “Snapshots: Art History and the Ethnographic turn,” in: Photographies, vol. 1, no. 2, 1998, pp. 135-136.
5
Camera Lucida,
11 by focusing on the personal memorial function of the photographic medium. The former one considers snapshots as objects determined by social relationships; whereas the latter discusses the personal reception and experience of photography. These discussions, which mainly focus on the users, the attitudes, and reception of amateur snapshots, do not emphasize the core meaning or the visual representation of snapshots.On the other hand, the visual qualities of snapshot photography has been emphasized in several catalogues, such as for example The Photography of Everyday
Life, 1888 to present, or The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978: from the Collection of Robert E. Jackson. Besides introducing the social background, and the
technological innovations taking place in the history of photography, these publications consider the innovative aspects of the snapshots and relate the creativity we can find in this “genre” with the development of instantaneous photography and the invention of the Kodak Camera. Anonymous photographs with a naïve but innovative form are in this context reappraised by the collectors or the museum curators.12The different approaches show the problematic utilization of methodologies. But they all offer a different vision which does not help to have a clear view on what a snapshot really is. As snapshot catches the fleeting moment in a picture, how fragmentary time can be represented in a picture?
This thesis will detail the history of snapshot photography. It will focus on the
11 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflection on Photography, Richard Howard (trans.), New York:
Hill & Wang, 1982.
12 This aspect has been criticized by several scholars. The way snapshots are often selected in order to fit the artistic taste cannot show the true snapshot, which is often banal, boring, and formalized.
Removing the original social context of snapshots previously hanging on walls or mounted in photo albums makes the snapshots isolated in museums. See: Geoffrey Batchen, “Snapshots: Art History and the Ethnographic Turn”, in: Photographies, vol. 1, no. 2, 2008, pp. 130-132, or Catherine Zuromskis,
“Ordinary Pictures and Accidental Masterpieces: Snapshot Photography in the Modern Art Museum,”
in: Art Journal, 2008, pp. 105-125.
6
first usage of the term and the evolution that took place later. My intension is not to consolidate Herschel’s status as the inventor of the term, but I would like to see how
first usage of the term and the evolution that took place later. My intension is not to consolidate Herschel’s status as the inventor of the term, but I would like to see how