Vernacular Photography

Why is amateur photography often regarded as being more authentic than the work produced by professional photographers, artists or documentarians?

Vernacular photography, photographs taken by amateurs or unknown photographers, features scenes of ordinary life from snapshots of the family to images of pets, possessions and holidays. Vernacular photography is the common language. People have used photography as a way of keeping a visual record of their lives for over a century. It could be argued that there is something perhaps more honest, direct and straight-forward with this kind of photography, it has an innocence and naïvety that the work of a professional may simply lack. “Perhaps because of his very alertness, and his very numbers, this nameless picture-taker may in the end be the truest and most valuable record of our times.” (Graves 1977) Though in order to fully answer this question of 'authenticity', I think it is important to go back to the beginning and look at the rise of amateur photography and how it was introduced to the masses as well as looking at today's explosion of the digital age, a far cry from the early days when photography required huge cameras, patience and money.

For much of the nineteenth century, cameras were made in relatively small numbers; crafted out of expensive materials like brass, mahogany and leather, putting it out of the reach of the general public. The most significant event in amateur photography by far was the introduction of the Kodak camera in 1888, invented and marketed by American businessman and entrepreneur George Eastman. Eastman realized that there was a huge untapped market of people who wanted to take their own photographs if they were given the means to do so. The Kodak was...

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...s in terms of composition, lighting and expression of the sitter. The photograph is taken by a machine which controls all technical aspects and then immediately prints the resulting images. There is no chance of manipulating these images unless they've been scanned in

To participate in the World Press Photo competition, you must be a professional photographer or photojournalist. In 2010, World Press Photo disqualified Stepan Rudik for altering the content of the image which is strictly forbidden in the competition. As FIG.1 above shows the original image and the final image that Rudik submitted; Rudik took the decision to remove the foot that was positioned between the forefinger and thumb. Though this was a very minor change, it did ultimately go against the WPP rules. The

a far cry from the early days when photography required huge cameras, patience and money.