A Photograph’s Life and Afterlives. A theoretical analysis of the meanings created and reflected by a vernacular photo collection depicting a family of Polish refugees in Uganda, 1942 - 1952.

(1)

A Photograph’s Life

and Afterlives

A theoretical analysis of the meanings created and reflected

by a vernacular photo collection depicting a family

of Polish refugees in Uganda, 1942 - 1952.

Anna Kućma s1981676

annakucma@gmail.com Supervisor: Dr. Helen Westgeest Second Reader: Dr. S.A. Shobeiri

17,241 Words (excl. of notes and bibliography) MA Thesis

Masters of Media Studies: Film and Photographic Studies Leiden University

(2)

“(…) the archive of a society, a culture or a civilization cannot be described exhaustively: or even, no doubt, the archive of a whole period. On the other hand it is not possible for us to describe our own archive since it is from within these rules that we speak, since it is that which gives to what we can say- and to itself, the object of or discourse- its modes of appearances, its forms of existence and coexistence, its systems of accumulation, historicity and disappearance. The archive cannot be described in its totality; and in its presence it is unavoidable. It emerges in fragments, regions, levels…” Michel Foucault, “The Archaeology Of Knowledge”

Introduction

Vernacular photography is one of the most common ways in which photographic images are created. Generally, as the name itself suggests, it is a record of the everyday created by common people. The development and accessibility of photographic equipment now allows us to take our photographs with great enthusiasm and eagerness — in the United States alone about 550 snapshots are taken per second. And as time passes these family snapshots 1 become what could be broadly called an archive- a physical or digital entity that very closely associated with the processes of remembering and forgetting.

A few years ago, while living in Uganda, I came across an image depicting a couple, both Polish refugees who had found shelter from World War Two in what was then called the British Protectorate of Uganda. The image stuck with me for years, and was a reason for me to find out more about my own country’s little-known history, a source of curiosity that led to writing this thesis and conducting research about vernacular photography and the archive from the perspective of that particular photograph and following the thought process caused by it. During the research, I soon found out that the photograph belongs to a wider collection, the

Batchen, “Forget Me Not”, p. 8. It is worth to mention here that “Forget Me Not” was published in

1

2004 and therefore the number of snapshots taken per day in the USA today would probably be much higher.

(4)

personal photographs of the Jagla family, and decided to include two similar images in the case study, so that I would be able to illustrate my arguments in a more precise way. My rationale for selecting these photographs and thus vernacular photography as my subject is also arguably a result of what Gilles Deleuze called the “encountered sign”, a sensation that the image evokes in a person that becomes a catalyst for thought and critical inquiry, forcing someone to think about these images for an extended period of time. Deleuze describes this draw towards an image by saying that “it, in spite of ourselves, is an impression, a material impression because it has reached us through our senses”. Therefore this family 2 photograph, and the personal collection that the image is a part of, will serve as a case study for my investigation.

This thesis will draw on research from within the field and apply those theories and approaches to demonstrate the ways in which images carry their own meaning, both as images and as objects, and how that meaning changes not just over time but also depending on their context and who is viewing them and why.

My focus is the analysis of the case study from the perspective of photographic theory, with the main goal of understanding some key aspects of the core image of the case study, such as what it represents, the genres it belongs to, the meaning of the collections it is a part of, and its materiality, to the highest possible degree. This approach, which will seek to dissect the case study in greater depth with each chapter, acknowledges that until very recently vernacular photography, while being one of the most common genres, was rarely seen as a topic of interest for scholars of culture, art history or photography. Scholarly work considering family photography and its archives has mostly been a focus for researchers concerned with visual anthropology and anthropology. Hence, the theoretical framework of the thesis will be a combination of what could be referred to as ‘classical’ photographic theory and more recent cultural and visual theory in order to derive and underline possible interpretative conclusions.

The first chapter will concentrate on introducing the vernacular as a genre and will review previous literature to create a picture of the history of personal photography, introducing the case study as well as its historical background, and proceeding to analyze the content of the photograph, and considering a number of

Deleuze quoted in Van Alphen, “Aﬀective Operations , p. 22.

(5)

components that make this photograph what it is. In this chapter I’m basing my enquiry on writings by scholars and researchers specializing in photography and popular imagery, most notably Geoﬀrey Batchen, Patricia Holland, Matte Sandbye and Clive Scott. Additionally, particularly when it comes to considering the genre of portraiture and decoding meanings, I draw on writings by Grahame Clarke and Phillipe Stokes.

In the second chapter I will take a different perspective altogether and look at the way that the images are preserved and seen, and the effects that these processes have on the meanings that can be derived from them. To do that I will start with considering the notion of the archive from a historical perspective and then demonstrate how a family photo collection, whether in an album or in a different shape, is a form of archive. I will be supporting my arguments with theories based on the writings of Michel Foucault. Those arguments, on the topic of power relationships within the archive, were introduced by theoreticians such as Alan Sekula and John Tagg, whose work was inspired by Foucault and is considered seminal for this area of photographic studies. Additionally I will be drawing on the thoughts of art historian and curator Okwui Enwazor, Marianne Hirsh, who combines feminist theory with memory studies, and philosopher Gillian Rose, among others.

Lastly, the third chapter will return to considering the image, but this time I will concentrate on its materiality as opposed to (but also related to) its content. I will investigate its affect in relation to vernacular photography, and discuss image-object in terms of an analysis of the impact of its physical appearance on the beholder. In other words- what an image does, as opposed to the earlier analysis of what the image is. I will also briefly explore how an image can change its meaning when being digitalised and entering the realm of the Internet. The theoretical framework of this chapter is based on affect theory as discussed by Patricia Clough, Brian Massumi and Marguerite La Caze, and Henry Martin Lloyd. When considering affect in relation to photography I will support my argument with the work of Elizabeth Edwards, Christopher Pinney, Laura Marks, Elspeth H. Brown, Thy Phu and, most notably, French philosopher and critic Ronald Barthes. When considering the influence of new technologies such as digitalizing or online sharing

(6)

on the aﬀective qualities of archival prints, I will draw on scholarly works by Nancy Van House and Joanna Sassoon.

All in all my investigation attempts an analysis of the image itself, its content including its site of production, and the sites and forms in which it has been kept and seen by various audiences, both private and public. The analysis will centre around the case study, namely three specific images, with a particular interest in one, and the wider family photo collection that belongs to John “Zbyszek” Jagla.

The aim of this thesis is to highlight through the example of the case study that vernacular photography carries certain qualities, primarily documentary and aﬀective, that extend further than just to the individual who owns the photograph, and to consider what role vernacular photography performs in a collective sense.

At this point it is also necessary to note that the chosen case study presents certain limitations; because I only had very limited access to it I built certain arguments on presuming some specific qualities that it could possibly have. I believe it is important to think about them in a more general sense, as it contributed to the whole process.

(7)

Chapter 1: Content and Context, or How an Image Speaks for Itself

I will begin my analysis by looking at the content of the photographs in my case study and at the subjects they portray, and through this examination address the question of what we are actually looking at. The pictures that I’m interested in were taken by a human hand and therefore the context of their creation, as well as a consideration of their physical attributes, adds to our understanding of the subject. This inquiry will not try to assess the aesthetic, formal or technical value of the photograph, but rather to explore the meanings arising from these factors using the theoretical tools and techniques available to me.

Photographs are recordings of reflected light, capturing and freezing a moment to allow it to be re-examined later. However once an image becomes an artefact the viewer is often a third party, unrelated to either photographer or subject, and in many instances even the place in which the image was made does not exist anymore or is not accessible, making it a literal record and representation of what-has-been . However the knowledge of a moment that is hidden in images can be 3 important not just to the individual to whom the image belongs, but also to the collective, historical consciousness and therefore to people who are not in any way directly connected with the subjects.

How do we then make sense of what we see and form more informed opinions about photographic images that we know nothing or very little about, and how important is our understanding of content, genre and context to the clear and correct reading of an image? What is the indexical nature of these photographs and their denotative power in the context of microhistories (as opposed to the metanarrative)?

The aim of this chapter is to answer the above questions, and the outline will be as follows: To start with I will introduce a working definition of vernacular photography formulated by others in order to frame and clarify my approach to this broad field in relation to my research. Further, I will place the genre of vernacular photography within the photography theory discourse, and discuss the definition of vernacular as it applies to my case study. It will be then followed by a description of the visual

“That-has-Been” is a statement describing the nature of photography formulated by Roland

3

Barthes in his seminal collection of critical essays on photography titled Camera Lucida. See: Barthes, “Camera Lucida”, p. 76-77.

(8)

contents of the photographs, and I will also address the meanings that can be derived from that content. I will examine more closely how portrait photography and vernacular photography overlap in my case study. And lastly the notion of recording and remembering will be addressed.

My argument will demonstrate that the message of a photograph cannot be fully considered in the absence of context, and while an image may oﬀer partial stories to casual viewers, to better understand it one has to be aware of many variables that create the context of its production.

1.1 The case study as an example of vernacular expression

To begin with it is important to consider vernacular photography as a concept and attempt to situate this kind of imagery in the larger history of photography and the theory of the photographic field. According to the dictionary-like publication, “The Oxford Companion to the Photograph”, vernacular photography is typified by “aesthetically unpretentious, generally functional images made by amateur snapshotters or grass-roots professionals (e.g. (…) jobbing local portraitists) for everyday purposes such as creating keepsakes or recording mundane objects.” Photography historian, Geoﬀrey Batchen, defines vernacular photography as “ordinary photographs, the ones made or bought (or sometimes bought and then made over) by everyday folk from 1839 until now, the photographs that preoccupy the home and the heart but rarely the museum or the academy.” 4 According to him the genre started developing immediately after the very invention of the photographic medium and, as pointed out by Mette Sandbye, family photography “is one of the most common types of photography in terms of its sheer numbers.” Even though vernacular practice represents such a vast and 5 widespread proportion of photographic production, both researchers agree that it has been to a large extent ignored by specialized academic analysis. To support her claim Sandbye gives an example of the survey-like publication titled Photography: A

Cultural History, in which its author Mary Werner Marien considers the diﬀerent

disciplines of photography and explores both professional and amateur work across all genres. It is immediately telling that the section concerning “Family Pictures” can

Batchen, “Each Wild Idea,” p. 57.

4

Sandbye, “Looking at the family photo album”, p.2.

(9)

only be found towards the end of the book. Marien describes the genre in the following manner: “(…) throughout the twentieth century, families accumulated extensive collections of images, the majority taken with simple cameras and increasingly reliable film. The content of family photographs was dominated by celebratory occasions, such as weddings, birthdays, and vacations.” She then continues, pointing out that only a small number of families dedicated any time to recording how their everyday life looked like, and she notes the absence of elements that we usually keep very private, such as messy kitchens and unmade beds. It could be argued that by adding this detail she implicitly devalues the meaning of the family photograph for what it is, and takes a dismissive tone, pointing out that not many people use their cameras for conceptual purposes or “psychological self-study and therapy.” Then, rather than concentrating on the 6 genre itself, she proceeds to discuss conceptual and artistic photographic approaches inspired by vernacular images. Additionally it should be noted that the term ‘snapshot’, which is frequently used to describe vernacular images, and which will also be used in this essay, has a certain implication already inbuilt- by describing it in this way we accept to consider images to be banal, informal and amateur. 7

Patricia Holland, on the other hand, writes extensively about the genre in her chapter published in Photography. A Critical Introduction. She makes a distinction in referring to “private” and “personal” pictures rather than “domestic” or “family”, saying that “private” and “personal” are more capable of encompassing a person’s life and experience as opposed to the rather stiff “domestic” or “family”, which carries a different meaning all together . While favoring the former, she agrees with 8 Batchen by pointing out that personal photography has evolved in parallel to the development of the history of photography itself. Additionally, Holland suggests 9 that in the discussion about vernacular photography it is beneficial to differentiate between “users” and “readers” of private photography. She argues that users generate an amplitude of surrounding knowledge about the photographs as their own private pictures are also part of the complex, interconnected system of

Marien, “Photography: A Cultural History”, p. 445.

6

See Berger, “Understanding a Photograph”, p. 18.

7

According to Holland, the term “family” is already problematic itself, as the definition of “family”

8

carries with it opinions and politics that diﬀer from person to person. Holland, “Sweet It Is To Scan”, p. 137.

(10)

memories and meanings that help them to make sense of their day-to-day lives. Readers, by contrast, will interpret a faint ‘snapshot’ or a “smiling portrait from the 1950s (as) a mysterious text whose meanings must be teased out in an act of decoding or historical detective work”. Consequently this the line of academic 10 thought within which I will situate my case study as I continue my investigation. 

1.2 Exploring content and context

The principal image (Fig. 1) that will be examined in pursuit of answers to the questions posed in the introduction is a black and white photograph, approximately 9x13 inches, depicting two adults, a man and a woman, beside a body of water. The woman is sitting on a dead crocodile which has a stick propping its jaws open so that the teeth of the reptile are displayed clearly in its gaping mouth. The man is standing behind her, one of his feet resting on the animal. A scan of this image was sent to me by its owner, and the file was named “Jan & Karolina Jagla in Koja with Lake Victoria in background”. The back of the image (Fig.2) bears a note handwritten in Polish that translates as: “We live amongst creature like this one is a crocodile, it is 12 meters’ long him who consumes people is lying dead here”. The written Polish has errors in it that I have tried to reflect in the translation.

I initially came across a photograph (Fig. 3) in a Polish online forum while doing research about Poles in Uganda. I then got in touch with the person who 11 had posted it, Mr. John “Zbyszek” Jagla, initially via Facebook and then via email. He sent me several more scanned photographs when I asked him to share more about his family history. Three of these images form my case study. According to Mr. Jagla, the core photograph (Fig. 1) was taken in either 1947 or 1948 and the note on the back was written by his father (the man in the photograph) to a relative, then later returned to the children as a memento.

The image can be qualified as belonging to the genre of vernacular photography and to be more precise it is a personal photograph constituting part of a larger collection which is held by the owners as a record of their family’s life. The image appears to have been made as a souvenir to preserve and communicate individual memories of this family from a certain time and place. According to Clive

Holland, “Sweet It Is To Scan”, p. 138.

10

See Chapter 3 for more details.

(11)

Scott, “the family snap would have no value if it were not firmly embedded in a specific instant of history”. Additionally, in Scott’s view, the particularity of that 12 instant is a driving reason to photograph it. The photographic collection that this thesis focuses on belongs to the family of Mr. John “Zbyszek” Jagla, and the observation made by Scott seems to be an accurate description of why the image was taken. I will return to this point in more detail, but first a closer explanation of the instant of the history in which this photograph was taken, is needed.

Mr. Jagla, the owner of the image, was born in Uganda in 1945 to Polish parents (the couple depicted together with the crocodile, Fig. 1), who at that time were displaced persons who had fled the Soviet invasion of Poland and found safe refuge in the British Protectorate of Uganda. Mr. Jagla’s personal story and that of his family forms a part of a larger history of the migration of thousands of Polish refugees from eastern Poland and Ukraine during the early days of World War II, one of the many peripheral chapters of the conflict. After countless hardships, including detention in Soviet labor camps and a terrible journey through Siberia, Iran and India, they eventually made their way to the East coast of Africa. The British settled some of these refugees in Uganda, placing them in two settlements, one in Nyabyeya, near Masindi, and the other at Koja, beside Lake Victoria. Altogether there were 22 diﬀerent resettlements for an estimated 18,000 displaced Poles in Eastern and Southern Africa. The Ugandan contingent, which stayed from 1942 to 1952, numbered some 7,000 people, mostly women and children. As such they outnumbered the resident European population in the Protectorate by three to one. By 1952 all the Poles had left Uganda, being forcibly resettled elsewhere within the British Empire. They left behind settlements that had been virtually self-suﬃcient and functioning almost as a parallel state, with schools, a hospital, a bakery and a piggery. Over time, the Koja settlement was completely dismantled, disappeared and became forgotten. In Masindi traces of houses and a Polish church remain as a part of the Nyabyeya Forestry College, while in Koja the only sign of the past is a cemetery, parts of which were renovated in 2009 by the Centre for Documentation of Deportations, Expulsions and Resettlements (CDDER), a research institute attached to the Pedagogical Institute in Kraków, Poland. Mr. Jagla, together with some other Poles, was resettled in the UK and now lives in Somerset. Knowing a

Scott, “The Spoken Image”, p. 29.

(12)

little more about the historical circumstances in which the images were taken helps us to place them in time, geographically and culturally, and explains why Poles are depicted alongside African wildlife and vegetation. 13

Vernacular photography performs a social function and the physical attributes of the image, namely its size and appearance, brings to mind a visual similarity with postcards, inexpensive and small photographic prints that could be sent through the post as a correspondence card. Typically those types of photographic portraits were often basic in their visual style, with a standard backdrop or none at all, minimal props and simple or natural lighting, as the image of the Jagla couple is. They were taken quickly and printed cheaply in order to be 14 aﬀordable to the widest possible range of customers. The crocodile may have been a prop which the photographer was using to attract customers and encourage them to have their picture taken, but it could also have been a scene which the subjects happened upon during a day out, such as the crocodile been perhaps killed by fishermen. Either way it could be argued that its function in the image is predominantly to represent the exotic and demonstrate how foreign the land is to the image’s subjects. The above-mentioned writing on the back supports that theory, as it also supports the interpretation of that particular photograph’s main purpose as a postcard that was intended to be sent to other family members to show them how diﬀerent the place where the image was taken is from their country of origin.

From my email correspondence with Mr. Jagla, I know that both of his parents came from small villages in southern Poland and life in Uganda was not only a ‘safe haven” for them, but also an exotic destination to be. The writing on the back confirms that the parents belonged to the working class, as the level of writing implies a poor education. Furthermore, knowing the historical background helps to situate this image together with many similar photographs taken in the colonial period, when missionaries, settlers, colonial oﬃcials and travellers also had posed portraits taken with objects or backdrops that they considered memorable or illustrative of their situation, and kept them as souvenirs.

See: Kiyaga-Mulindwa, “Uganda: Safe Haven for Polish Refugees: 1942- 1951” or Chudzio, “Z

13

mrozów Syberii pod Slońce Afryki. W 70. rocznice przybycia polskich Sybiraków do Afryki Wschod-niej i Południowej”.

Stokes, “The Family Photograph”, p. 195.

(13)

The image in question was probably taken by a semi-professional photographer from Kampala who made the journey to the refugee camp in search of customers. At that time many photographers were of Indian origin, and most were based in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, because of the availability of equipment and materials as well as the relative wealth of the city and thus their potential customers. Whoever the photographer was (and assuming, as was likely at the time, that it was a man), he made a certain number of individual steps or characterisations as he followed through the photographic process, starting with the chosen (or available) equipment and the way it was used. Even if some of 15 these decisions were not conscious it doesn’t mean that they didn’t take place. They determined the amount of detail and information that appears on the picture and, as is visible in the examples at hand, the exposure of the pictures. Comparing Fig. 1 and Fig. 3, it could be said that one image is better exposed than another. Equally these two images are digitalized copies and not originals and the process of scanning itself may have impacted the way the scans look. However it can be observed that despite the diﬀerence in subjects between the two images, which likely took some time, the photographer didn’t change viewpoint. That on one hand indicates the use of a tripod and on the other that the photographer was happy with his framing. The positioning of the camera is yet another characterization and is usually carefully planned by professional photographers as they compose the image to make it aesthetically pleasing. Yet, in this case, the positioning of the camera puts the subjects in the right hand side of the picture leaving the left side almost empty. Subject positioning and framing is quite an important characterization to be made, especially for readers of an image as it contributes to how the subject is seen in relation to the environment they are in. In this particular example it is diﬃcult to say if the decision was taken consciously or not, although it might have been dictated by the desire of the photographer to show the crocodile in its full glory. As the composition does not seem obviously deliberate or consciously arranged it could be concluded that the photographer might have been more of an amateur, taking low-cost family pictures for refugees as he sought to make money, rather than a professional with a clear idea in mind. However the lack of distracting

Snyder, Allen, “Photography, Vision”, pp. 149-150.

(14)

background detail has the eﬀect of overcoming the composition as our attention is focused on the human and animal subjects because there isn’t much else to see.

According to Holland, even when photographs are taken by a professional, the contract between photographer and subject in vernacular photography is very different from other genres of photography. “The photographs we make for ourselves are treasured less for their quality than for their context, and for the part they play in confirming and challenging the identity and history of their users. Personal pictures have been made specifically to portray the individual or the group to which they belong as they would wish to be seen and as they have chosen to show themselves to one another.” What Holland implies here is that as much as 16 the photographer took certain decisions that influenced the final image, the family depicted did so too. They have decided to wear certain clothes- the father is wearing a suit and the mother a dress and blazer, making an effort to present themselves smartly. The twins were dressed in matching outfits- a common practice when it comes to representation and the general manner in which parents highlight the fact that their children are twins (Mr Jagla is one of the twins depicted in the photograph). Graham Clarke points out that portrait photographs are full of ambiguities at every level of meaning. He explains that a photographic portrait “for all its literal realism (…) denotes, above all, the problematics of identity, and exists within a series of cultural codes which simultaneously hide as they reveal what I have termed its enigmatic and paradoxical meaning.” The family made an effort to 17 be captured in a certain manner, perhaps trying to hide certain elements of their reality, such as the general poverty the Poles had to confront while in Uganda. They wanted to be represented and therefore remembered in the way they would rather to be seen. Clive Scott sums that up by saying that “the resulting photograph is a record not of reality but of a set of judgements made in front of reality.” Thus 18 photographs that we trust to be transparent, and even (or perhaps especially) personal ones with their perceived innocence of purpose, are in fact constructed visions communicating the wishes of their subjects.

Holland, “Sweet It Is To Scan”, p. 138.

16

Clarke, “The Photograph”, p. 4.

17

Scott, “The Spoken Image”, p. 35.

(15)

1.3 Portraiture’s codes of meaning

The observed similarities between the image and a photographic postcard mentioned above signal that the photograph can also be qualified as a sub-genre of photographic portraiture whilst claiming vernacular status in the same time. In its most basic form a photographic portrait is a proof of what Barthes calls “a certificate of presence”, a record of someone being in front of the camera when the photo was taken. Graham Clarke expands on that, when he writes that “as an 19 analogue of the original subject, the portrait photograph surreptitiously declares itself as the trace of the person (or personality) before the eye.” In our everyday lives as citizens of nation states, the photograph serves to validate identity. It has acquired a rank equal to a signature and the presence and identity of the individual is made known through it. According to Clarke however it is not as simplistic as it might seem, because rather than representing the individual, the photograph “codifies the person in relation to other frames of reference and other hierarchies of significance”. And therefore the portrait, more than any other type of photographic image, establishes its meaning through the context in which it is looked at. The 20 way in which the photographic portraiture functions has of course its origins in its links to painterly portraitures and traditions, which was also full of codes and different styles of representation. As previously mentioned, in both content and physical form the image resemble a postcard type of print and that development in photographic portraiture can be traced back to painted portraits, affordable to a very narrow section of the society, and later to daguerreotypes and carte-de-visites, which became more and more affordable. 21

It was David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson who introduced an element of informality to portrait photography, extending its nature in revolutionary ways by taking it away from the formal and impersonal setting of the studio. By doing so they initiated a trend which still remains relevant, where the photographer places the subject within a context in which their daily life and existence can be represented.

Barthes, “Camera Lucida”, p. 87. Of course this statement is vulnerable to criticism as the photo

19

-graphic image can be manipulated in such a way that it will show a person present even if he or she wasn’t, but that discussion will be omitted here for reasons of brevity as it does not add anything to the line of argument.

Clarke, “The Portrait”, p. 1.

20

See: Holland “Sweet It Is To Scan”, pp. 146-148.

(16)

More importantly Hill and Adamson expanded the range of portraiture and made it both a populist and a democratic domain. The developments in photographic 22 techniques made portraits more accessible, but not any less important for those posing for it. During the twentieth century portrait photography has increasingly become a medium through which individuals not only confirm, but also explore their identity. The subjects in both Fig. 1 and Fig. 3 are posing for the photograph in a 23 rather formal way and it could be therefore argued that it qualifies the image(s) less as a typical vernacular family snapshot, and more as a posed portrait, albeit taken by a semi-professional. The usual hierarchies employed in this type of imagery are also visible. When looking at Fig. 2 we can see that the children, who are much shorter, are placed in front of the parents. The father is embracing and supporting the twins and it could be argued that by doing so he is expressing his role as head of the family. Similarly Fig. 4 depicts the children in between the parents, an 24 analogical family arrangement expressing the hierarchy in a natural manner. Additionally another common practice of family portraiture can be observed when looking at Fig. 4. Philip Stokes describes a custom of arranging for family photographs to be taken with the family home present in the background as a backdrop and a dominant motif. He claims that this practice represented a “general habit of identifying sitters with their material possessions”. An analogy could be 25 therefore drawn between those practices and Fig. 4, the family being depicted with a monument constructed to commemorate a national holiday. The object present in the image can serve as a sort of mapping of an important social space. Further Stokes explains that the notion of mapping could be supported by the somewhat unusual, though still frequently seen images where group of subjects were photographed not in a cluster, but rather “distributed throughout the whole visual field”. It could be argued that Fig. 4 has been executed exactly in that way, to 26 preserve the whole memory not just for the viewer but more importantly for its

Clarke, “The Photograph”, pp. 106-107.

22

Holland “Sweet It Is To Scan”, p. 122.

23

Fig. 4 depicts the Jagla family in front of the 3rd_{of May celebratory construction in Koja settlement.} 24

The 3rd_{of May is a Polish national and public holiday celebrating the declaration of the first Polish}

Constitution on 3 May 1791. We can see Polish flags and the Polish coat of arms as well as banana trees surrounding the construction. The parents and the twins are standing in front of the celebratory construction.

Stokes, “The Family Photograph”, p. 195-6.

25

Ibid, p. 197.

(17)

subjects. In summary, as well as being vernacular expressions these images can be categorised as portraits, implying yet another additional layer of possible interpretation. Alongside this, the fact that more than one photograph can be looked at in the company of other similar images helps us to form more informed opinions about the way in which the images were approached and thought of by the Jagla family, namely as memory keepers.

1.4 To record and remember

A vital reason why the images of the Jagla family were taken has to be addressed too. According to John Berger “the most popular use of the photographs is as a memento of the absent” and indeed the emotional attitudes humans share 27 towards their personal photographs is driven by the desire to record and remember. As was mentioned above, the vernacular photograph is associated with recording events related primarily to family life and the resulting imagery has often been considered as having little value for contemporary scholars, and yet that is where its value lies for both its users and readers.

Vernacular photography has become more relevant and more of a source of information worthy of academic study as the ‘present’ has become the ‘past’ and the contemporary has become history. As time passes the initial ‘micro’ purpose of the image, recording moments to remember, becomes secondary to the ‘macro’ knowledge which it oﬀers to unconnected readers. That can be observed on the example of the case study, where private photographs can become an object of scholarly enquiry and a point of departure to think about often unconscious features of photographic genres. Batchen observes that by this change the snapshot throws into confusion the established categories of “art history and its definitions of photographic meaning” . This transformation in critical perspective has been 28 helped by a wider “material turn” in photography (further discussed in Chapter 3), a shift supported by photographers such as Nan Goldin and William Eggleston, who used the visual language but subverted it to create widely-recognized art. Over time and with the shifts in perception, cultural forms have become recognized separately

Berger, “Understanding a Photograph”, p. 20.

27

Referencing Batchen in Cross and Peck, “Special Issue”, p. 130.

(18)

from the images’ ideological content, and imagery that seemed banal when taken assumes a more meaningful role.

Indeed, the value of the vernacular photographs, such as those presented in the case study, do not represent the value solely to its users. They have gained not only a scholarly value in the area of theory of photography but also history or visual anthropology. Those images are also quickly becoming relicts of the photographic history because they have been taken on a analogue camera and kept printed on paper. According to Philip Stokes, “to look at the portrait of an individual is to invite oneself to all sorts of speculations as to who they were, how they would have spoken, what they would have thought.” Indeed, as pointed out by Holland, 29 readers are required to translate those private meanings into a more public realm in an attempt of decoding the photographic meaning, however tricky it might prove to be. Therefore cultural codes embedded in photographic genres play a crucial role in understanding, even if they are not realized in a conscious way. In the same time the remarkable fascination with personal photographs comes from a contrast between an almost overpowering richness of potential meaning, coded in space, posture, clothes or historical timeframe, and the inconsequentiality and triviality of the genre . Establishing meaning is a complex and methodological process and it gets 30 more complicated as the time passes. As demonstrated in the example of the case study, it is not only the understanding of photographic genres or methods of representations, but equally our practical knowledge and day-to-day experiences and our own cultural background that helps us interpret images. 31

One can understand an image to a much greater degree when not only the content (what can we see) but also the context of what, where, when, why and how is available to us. Again, as demonstrated with the case study, often those elements can be obscured by time and lack of relevant records, especially when looking at historical images. Therefore the process of understanding can only be done by a systematic approach, uncovering hidden messages that require not only photographic but also historical and cultural knowledge and study. It could be claimed that humans generally regard the photograph as an honest source, and that

Stokes, “The Family Photograph”, p. 193.

29

Holland, “Sweet It Is to Scan”, p. 138- 139.

30

See: Snyder, Allen, “Photography, Vision”, p. 156.

(19)

vernacular imagery, with its lack of motive beyond simple record, is usually perceived to be more trustworthy than, for example, fashion photographs. It is that assumption that allows us to trust that what was captured is truthful in what it depicts. Those records often determine that the world that we live in is not homogenized or does not subscribe to one singular version of history. We now ascribe documentary value to the vernacular imagery. The images of the Jagla family have become documents of a group of people who found themselves refugees in Uganda in the 1940s and 1950s. We trust that they are authentic and true, but that belief is only created by the context of creation of those photographs, not by the photographic representation itself.

To summarize, it could be said that photographs record reality, but also construct it and represent it in ambiguous ways. They transmit personal and collective memories by giving clues that tell viewers where and how to look to find more information (I had never heard about Polish refugees in Uganda until I saw an image that caught my attention and made me search for more information). This particular example, if we accept the previously-introduced working definition of vernacular photography as being images made by ordinary people for the purposes of remembering, shows that as a visual category it can be less polished than other photographic genres but the photographs discussed here still retain some of the ambiguity inherent in the medium. In some ways it can be more deceptive to both users and readers, because despite its perceived honesty, which comes from the amateur and unpolished visual style, its subjects, in this case the Jagla family, are involved in its creation and they seek to present themselves in the way they would like others to see them. It does not mean however that their documentary value has been diminished.  

(20)

Chapter 2: Family photo collections versus institutional archives

It could be argued that the invention of photography has been a driving force for, and to an extent even created the principle mechanisms for the ongoing human passion for recording and archiving. As human beings, we do not only want to 32 capture moments and freeze them in time, but we archive them and arrange them too, so that we can return to those frozen instances and look again at the past. Our ways of archiving and arranging, and the motivations that are behind this interest, vary widely but the result is always a similar product- history laid out in a format that makes its reading more understandable to its reader.

In the previous chapter I considered the content of single images or records as I attempted to decode the possible meanings and to position those photographs within the context of photographic theory and production. A consideration was also made as to which photographic genre the images could belong to, which included investigating the initial intention of why the image was taken.

In this chapter, on the other hand, I will reflect on how meaning is created when one also considers how the images have been stored and their specific material location, but also the social and cultural background of both image and location. To be more specific, this chapter will focus on the archive and its history and motivations in relation to vernacular photography’s equivalent, that could be broadly referred to as a family album.

I will introduce the notion of the archive itself and talk about the role of photography and image production in construction of the archive. I will look closer at how the photographic archive has been weighed and treated within the discourse of photographic theory and, as a contrast to my first chapter in which I discussed the ways in which information can be derived from an individual image, I will address the new perspectives, both positive and negative, that are added when that single image is considered within a larger collection. Does it influence our reading and understanding of what we are looking at? And if so, how? The consideration of a specific type of photographic archive, namely what is broadly understood as constituting a family photo album, will follow. Through this consideration I will

For example see: Enwazor, “Archive Fever”, p. 22.

(21)

attempt to answer the question of whether we can qualify a family album as an archive and if so on what terms.

The case study for this chapter is the wider collection of images belonging to Mr. Jagla. This collection will serve as a point of reference for a wider discussion about this specific type of photographic archive. Still, it is key to look into these aspects of meaning creation to clarify the points of this thesis. Finally I will look at the mnemonic function of the family album. What is the changing meaning and usage of the album as its historical significance becomes more clear with the passage of time?

At this point I should clarify that for the purposes of this chapter I will only look at the physical family album as a form of archive. I will omit more recent manifestations of family photography and archives that are held in digital formats and visible via online spaces. The reason for doing so is dictated by constraints of space and clarity, and also by the fact that the case study is indeed first and foremost a collection of photographic prints that have been printed and stored since. Even though some have been digitalised, the whole collection still represents what one could summarise as an older iteration of vernacular photography. Digital archiving and the changing modes of information dissemination will play a part in my next chapter. Additionally, since the Jagla collection has not been stored in a typical album format, but rather in a simple box, the “family album” functions also as a term that is used to encompass diﬀerent manifestations of how vernacular photographs are being kept.

For my theoretical basis I will focus on the theory of archives built around the writings of Michel Foucault, which was taken over by the seminal photography theoreticians Alan Sekula and John Tagg. Additionally I will draw on research conducted by Okwui Enwazor, Marianne Hirsh and Gillian Rose among others.

2.1 Photography and the storage of knowledge

The Oxford Dictionary defines an archive as “a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people”. The word’s origins go back to 17th_{century French, deriving from the Latin} words “archiva” and “archia”, which in turn come from the Greek words “arkheia”, meaning public records, and from “arkhē”, which means government. The verb “to

(22)

archive” dates back to the late 19th_{century. Apart from a collection of records, an}33 archive can also refer to a physical place where historical material or records are kept, be it by a government, museum, university or private individual. However it is important to note that, especially in the post-colonial era, archives are not simply historical repositories but now also sites for the uncovering and exploration of histories that are often unknown, including those whose presence has been denied. Therefore historical archives, particularly those of governments, can become crucial in forming our understanding of the present day through past experience and our individual and collective identities as they were in the past and in the present, and may also shape them in the future.

Post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida notes in the first sentences of

Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (1995) that archives also exclude, and that this

contradiction is inscribed in the etymology of the word. He explains that “arkhe, we recall, names at once the commencement and the commandment. This name apparently coordinates two principles in one: the principle according to nature or history, there where things commence- physical, historical, or ontological principle- but also the principal according to the law, there where man and gods command, there where authority, social order are exercised, in this place from which order is given- nomological principle.” The Greek etymology of the word, according to Derrida, points us into the direction of an understanding whereby only citizens with significant power were considered to have the right to preserve the records.34

In The Imperial Archive (1993), Thomas Richards dates the beginnings of the contemporary archival impulse back to the 19th_{century in England and thus to the} height of British imperialism, a period whose later years also encompasses the time during which the images I am principally studying, of Polish refugees in Uganda under the jurisdiction of the British Empire, were also produced. The objective of the Victorian archival machine and its continuation through the end of the empire and, through various incarnations, to the present day was to accumulate, unify and synchronize knowledge by the means of producing records both in the form of images and written documents. Richards emphasizes that “(…) the archival gaze has combined the triple register of inquiry, measure and examination to prepare

Oxford Dictionary Online, accessed April 22nd_{, 2018. Additionally “archive” refers to a date record} 33

of a computer system.

Derrida, “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression”, pp. 9- 10.

(23)

data to be acted upon by the variable modalities of power.” Indeed, in The Burden 35

of Representation (1988), photographic historian John Tagg argues that the

quickly-established connection between the collection of information and photography was tied up with new practices of record-keeping and new institutions (such as the Royal Photographic Society). “Power and meaning”, Tagg writes, “thus have a reciprocal relation described in the coupled concepts of the regime of power and the regime of sense. What characterized the regime in which the photographic evidence emerged, therefore, was a complex administrative and discursive restructuring, turning on social division between the power and privilege of

producing and possessing and the burden of being meaning. In the context of this

historical shift in power and sense, photographic documentation and evidence took form (…).” Tagg claims that only social beings can ever make sense of 36 37 photographs, and therefore what viewers think they see in the picture is determined by the everyday knowledge and discourses within which the photograph is situated and to which the viewer can refer. Moreover, Tagg also argues that the status of the photograph as ‘evidence’ is not a product of its inherent and indexical properties, but rather it is a result of how powerful institutions have represented some types of imagery as faultlessly reproducing the recognizable world at certain moments in history. It is precisely the use of photography by institutions that, according to 38 Tagg, validates the medium as unified and coherent, and which also results in the belief that photographs picture the real. In other words, photography has been used by institutions of power as a crucial technology to produce what was intended to be seen as and believed to be the truth.

Allan Sekula, in his article titled “Reading the Archive. Photography Between Labour and Capital” (2003) considers a number of questions relating to the photographic archive and its power. He describes the archive as a “quantitative ensemble of images” and defines several diﬀerent types of archives, such as the museum archive, historical collection or family album. What those have in common is that they accumulate photographs of diﬀerent types, and yet inflict on them a hegemoneity that is the product of the archive itself. According to Sekula, “the unity

Richards quoted in Enwazor, “Archive Fever”, p. 19.

35

Tagg, “The Burden of Representation”, p. 6.

36

Tagg’s claim was written in opposition to Barthes. I will introduce Barthes’ standpoint in Chapter 3.

37

Tagg, “The Burden of Representation”, p. 5.

(24)

of an archive is first and foremost that imposed by ownership”. Many kinds of photographs, taken for diﬀerent, possibly antagonistic reasons, are brought together and so “in an archive, the possibility of meaning is “liberated” from the actual contingencies of use. But this liberation is also a loss, an abstraction from the complexity and richness of use, a loss of context”. Sekula, in a similar vein to 39 Tagg’s reflections, also claims that archives are not neutral depositories, but rather reflections of the politics and institutions that are “running them”; they are selective and they also represent what is absent. 40

According to Gillian Rose, by exploring the eﬀects of archivisation, writers such as Sekula are following an understanding of the discourses and interpretations of institutions that was first proposed by French philosopher Michel Foucault, most notably in his Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison (1977). Rose suggests that two major methodologies developed and used by researchers in visual studies both use Foucault’s work as a basis. Discourse analysis I, as described by Rose, 41 concentrates on “the notion of discourse as articulated through various kinds of visual images and verbal texts”. Discourse analysis II, on the other hand, shows a tendency to concentrate on the material practices of institutions and is more concerned with issues of power or regimes of truth. Both discourses share an 42 interest in power’s links to the production of knowledge; however the one that appears to heavily influence Sekula and especially Tagg is the second one, which is primarily concerned with the production and reiteration of visual material by these particular institutions, as well as their practices and their production of particular human subjects. 43

Archives, according to this Foucauldian analysis, are institutions that work in quiet and particular ways, that have eﬀects not only on what is stored in them but also on those who use them. Foucault argues that institutions function through 44 their apparatuses and through their technologies, and he defines institutional technologies as the techniques that are used to apply and express power and knowledge. Both Tagg and Sekula argue that photography should be understood as

Sekula, “Reading an Archive”, p. 444.

39

Ibid, p. 446.

40

Also see: Smith, “The Politics of Focus”, p. 14.

41

Rose, “Visual Methodologies”, p. 195.

42

Rose, “Visual Methodologies”, p. 227.

43

Ibid, p. 228.

(25)

a technology in the Foucauldian sense. As pointed out by Rose, “their work has been held together by insistence on power relations articulated through institutions and their technologies.” In summary, for these writers it is clear that images are articulations of institutional power. This agrees with Tagg’s earlier argument that 45 the colonial archivists and their modern counterparts see control of the production, storage and dissemination of information as a way of maintaining power. I will return to this point in my conclusion as I seek to define the archival characteristics of my case study and relate it to the debates around terminology, as well as discussing the eﬀects these relationships may have.

2.2 The family photo album as a form of archive

In writings both by Tagg and Sekula the lack of acknowledgement of the

possible existence of visualities diﬀerent than those accepted and projected by dominant institutions has often been criticised. For example Lindsay Smith, in The

Politics of Focus: Women, Children and Nineteenth Century Photography points out

that both theoreticians have overlooked the wide range of domestic photography produced during the nineteenth century, in particular those images produced by women. Those practices, it could be argued, do not agree with the institutional gaze that was favoured at that particular time, but rather create a diﬀerent, more personal perspective. Additionally, by not allowing those practices and perspectives a place in the mainstream, Smith argues, Tagg doesn’t allow counter-narratives nor the space for contestation. 46

Indeed, alongside the archive as state institution, another type of archive was developing– a private one. If an archive represents a need to formally organise the elements that it consists of , then “the realm of the snapshot” should be qualified 47 as stored in a specific type of archive, the photo album. The first commercial 48 photographic album was designed in 1854 in Paris to display cartes-de-visites as an attempt to equip photographic consumers with a collection management tool. Three principal categories of albums emerged in the nineteenth century, in particular

Ibid, pp. 230-233.

45

Smith, “The Politics of Focus”, pp. 14- 15

46

See Enwazor, “Archive Fever”, p. 14.

47

Enwazor, “Archive Fever”, p. 13

(26)

personal albums, speciality albums and oﬃcial albums. Very quickly the personal 49 album became a constant element of the typical Victorian household and soon the subcategory of the family album emerged, displaying a visual record of family life to be shown to family and visitors. The albums developed during Victorian times by 50 women were often overseen. Smith refers frequently to those perspectives, 51 discounted by Tagg and Sekula.

The album soon became an important object that can be still found in some form in most households and yet, even though most people in the Western world have produced some version of this album, it only entered histories of photography relatively recently. Beaumont Newhall’s important survey that has served as a reader for generations of photography historians, first published the 1930s and titled “The History of Photography”, does not mention the family album at all. Similarly in her 52 survey of photographic history Mary Werner Marien does not find family albums interesting enough to deal with extensively, and in fact she rather vaguely calls them “large image collections”. As Batchen argues and Sandbye agrees, family 53 photography represents an interpretative problem because of the presumed banality of those images. The researchers suggest that this is why snapshots and family albums have been positioned as distinct forms and have been denied entry into the history of photography. But regardless of how marginalised they are within scholarly research, family photographs and albums should not be automatically dismissed as irrelevant records of lives or cultural forms.

At this point I would like to return to the case study. The image collection under scrutiny here were sent to me by Mr. Jagla via email in 2015 which included 28 images and a map of the resettlement in Nyabyeya, near Masindi. The images shared are the digitalised versions of the original images and form part of even larger collection and at present are stored in a box. Some of the photographs that are in the box exist only as prints and have not yet been scanned and therefore have only been seen by the Jagla family’s members. As already described in the first chapter, the images depict the family attending diﬀerent public occasions such

Hirsch, “Family Frames”,, p. 6

49

Hirsh, “Family Frames”, pp. 23- 24.

50

For more information about photocollage albums see: Patricia Di Bello, “Women’s Albums and

51

Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts”. London: Ashgate, 2007. Sandbye, “Looking at the family photo album”, p. 2.

52

Marien, “Photography”, 445.

(27)

as the Polish Constitution Day celebrations on the 3rd_{of May. Additionally the box} contains typical private family snapshots; for example a photograph of the twins soon after they were born, being proudly presented to the camera by a nurse. There is also a third type of imagery, depicting what could be described as general life of the family and their friends living in the settlement, picturing them working or posing with Ugandans and Indians. Additionally, Mr. Jagla shared a few colour images of a recent trip to Uganda that was undertaken by his twin brother. It is worth noting that these images lack basic compositional skills and it seems that their perceived value lies mostly in their record of the visit rather than in the manner that they have been taken. Unfortunately at this point this information is all that is known about the collection, because of communication issues with the owner. The additional information about what the photographs depict comes from email conversations and the way information was saved in the digital files. I cannot assume how the captions where kept- physically, as is the case with Figure 1, or perhaps only in someone’s memory.

As observed by Holland, any attempt to explain contemporary personal photography is a complicated task. 19th_{century photographs are beyond living} memory and therefore they can be treated according to their content, either as documents, as aesthetic creations or as someone else’s story. Mid and late twentieth- and twenty-first century pictures, however, are still part of lived experience and “hint at meanings which are tantalizingly within our grasp”. Even though “the album” serves as a general term, a family collection of photographs can be kept in many diﬀerent forms. Photographs taken on film may be organized in packets or negative drawers; some may be in albums, while others are scattered around in a disorderly fashion. Still more may be stored in a box, as is the case with Mr. Jagla’s pictures. However they are kept, it is often the case that these photographs carry great emotional value and are near-impossible to throw away. 54

Marianne Hirsh has observed that an attempt to translate a photo album or a private collection stored in a box might prove an impossible task. “Words, like photographs, are furious multipliers, a thousand for each picture, or so the saying goes. To match the photograph, every element in the picture (every propagator of codes) must be measured, weighed, and entered on a mental list, and this is just

Holland, “Sweet it is to scan”, pp. 168-69.

(28)

the beginning. A close reading of a photograph is like a stone dropped in a pond, with its ever-expanding inclusions, occlusions, and allusions. A book of photographs layers surface upon surface of real and virtual intersections; clusters of breaks and spaces associated with meanings must be take into account.” This is 55 even more true when very little information is availed to a researcher. In addition, according to Morton and Newbury, individual images organized in a collection, be it an album or a box, “are understood within visual systems; in which they gain their meaning in relation to other images. As visual systems in their own right, archives are also subject to such an analysis, establishing networks of relationships between image-objects over time that have directly aﬀected the way in which we understand visual history.” Catherine Whalen takes that claim further and suggests that the 56 photographic album, understood as a form of evidence, oﬀers unquestionable interpretive opportunities. Principally, it provides a intentionally-chosen selection of photographs arranged in a particular sequence, which implies a narrative or story that unfolds in front of viewers’ eyes page by page. Moreover some albums might include captions, notes or comments, which further improve the narrative’s legibility. In addition, the genre of the photographic album or private collection itself encodes a storytelling function.57 Even though the collection of the Jagla family might seem not to be displaying these qualities (rather than turning pages of a book-like album one has to dig through a pile of photographs), it still forms a visual system not just as a single collection but also when placed into a wider context alongside other, similar collections from the same period.

One could suppose that the pictures in this particular collection might not always be intentionally “selected”, but rather gathered and archived with no “filter” in terms of the quality of the images. But this interpretation overlooks the purpose of the collection. For the owners these pictures represent a diﬀerent value altogether, measured in sentiment. According to Anne Marie Garat, the album acts to fill a void. She claims that “the family album, in its naïve and defective way, certainly satisfies the immense need for the “story (le dit)” which for lack of written documents (l’écrit) haunts each family”. That theory seems to be supported by Martha Langford who 58

Hirsch, Family Frames, p. 4.

55

Morton, Newbury, “Relocating The African Photographic Archive”, p. 7.

56

Whalen, “Interpreting Vernacular Photography”, p. 79.

57

Garat cited in and translated from French by Hirsch, “Family Frames”, p. 5.

(29)

oﬀers a convincing argument that such private photographic collections act as encouragements for oral performance. In other words, the act of viewing our 59 albums or, in this particular case, photographs from a box, which often happens at home, also encourages the telling of stories about the people and events depicted in them. Often older family members act as interpreters who can narrate what others look at. Mr. Jagla served as such an interpreter for me, an outsider, and 60 was able to use the content of his images to describe the story of his family via emails.

For Richard Chalfen, an American anthropologist and a pioneer of the study of family photographs, this genre is “primarily a medium of communication”. He defines the family album as “a site of cross generational exchange and cultural continuity, transformative and moderating as family members are exposed to the external pressure of acculturation”. In other words the family photo collection 61 helps each family to preserve their individual identity within a broader society. Sandbye, too, claims that albums are about social and emotional communication. According to her they can be interpreted as ways of understanding and coming to terms with life, and at the same time they document sociological aspects of daily lives that we do not have access to from other historical sources. Indeed, as the 62 case study demonstrates, not only can it function as the Jagla family’s preservation of their Polish identity, first during the migration and now in the UK, but it also shows the every day lives Polish refugees led in Uganda.

2.3 The role of the family photo collection in remembering

A summary of the thoughts of several writers on the topic could be that photography becomes a direct way through which our experience of the past is structured, and that its function is a direct guarding of family memory. According to Mette Sandbye, a family photo album is a globally-circulating system of archiving that not only takes locally-specific forms but also produces localities and by consequence creates and negotiates individual stories. The wish to make a 63

Whalen, “Interpreting Vernacular Photography”, p. 79.

59

Hirsh, “Family Frames”, p. 5.

60

Chalfen, cited in Hirsch, Family Frames”, p. 4.

61

Sandbye, “Looking at the family photo album”, p. 5.

62

Sandbye, “Looking at the family photo album”, p. 3.

A Photograph’s Life and Afterlives. A theoretical analysis of the meanings created and reflected by a vernacular photo collection depicting a family of Polish refugees in Uganda, 1942 - 1952.