Snapshots "r" us: the evidentiary problematic of home media

Abstract

This paper addresses ways and means by which ordinary people attribute a sense of evidence to non-art vernacular images such as snapshots and related forms of home media. Advantages of using the intentionally ambiguous phrase, "How they looked", are presented for understanding shifts in constructing meaning and evidence attached to pictures "from the field". Several image categories involving intersections of home media and mass media are reviewed. Finally some speculation is offered regarding contributions of digital technology to changing the evidential veneer of home media representation.