Accidental Mysteries

Collecting vernacular photography is not so far from hoarding family photographs, particularly from two or three generations removed. I have a handful pf photographs of my father as a two or three-year old that I find visually interesting, taken by an unknown relative. Had I not been told the little boy in the picture was my dad, they'd have a whole different meaning.

When it comes to vernacular photography, the place in question is conceptual, not necessarily physical or geographic. Here, “vernacular” refers to a locus of expression in the medium of photographic image-making that is, simultaneously, everywhere and nowhere; traditionally, that familiar “place” has been and is anywhere where anyone who has ever handled a camera, shooting a conventional kind of photo (like the family snapshots or other generic images listed above), has pointed his or her lens.

From Everybody’s Photography by Edward M. Gomez