Unidentified Photographer, [Two unidentified girls, one eating watermelon, the other disrobing], ca. 1960.
The rich history of snapshot photography has yet to be written. But when
that text is transcribed it will finally be possible to understand the
complex role that snapshots once played in framing social identity and
everyday life in the twentieth century, in every country, across several
generations, in very ritualistic and historically specific ways. The
consummate middle-class art form, snapshot photography allowed amateur
photographers in those pre-Tumblr days to document and to some extent to
invent their lives and accomplishments. Occasionally, however, by luck
or misfortune, the pictures made by those avid backyard snapshooters
exceeded the bounds of the routine occasion. Collectors John and Teenuh
Foster of St. Louis, who recently donated to ICP the fantastic
photograph above, seek out such photographic aberrations, which they
refer to as “
accidental mysteries.”
The tiny picture is a small miracle of dramatic composition. One girl
in a ca. 1960 Brownie uniform chomps down on a slice of watermelon while
the other girl twists to escape from the dress she is wearing, exposing
one bare shoulder. The joyous summertime relationship between the two
adolescent girls and their surprisingly balletic poses create an image
that reads like a vernacular
Sally Mann.
The photographer here is anonymous, however, reminding us that
thrilling images such as this, though rare, could be made—or
discovered—by almost anyone.
Via
Fans in a Flashbulb
