Momento
November 1 – December 2, 2007
“Momentos; investigating personal photographic mementos through contemporary photography
CONCLUSION:
This project grew out of a curiosity about photos in the everyday lives of people around me. I am interested in why people make and keep personal photographs. Most of the people I surveyed are not academics or professional artists and all of my images were taken outside of any professional sphere. I found the range of interpretations to my proposed question to be much broader than I could have expected. Although the subjects, their chosen photos and their interpretations and rationales were diverse, a basic commonality was found in that these are the photos that people were most excited to talk about. These were the images that instinctively came to mind for my subjects at the time of my question. The responses I found were intuitive, non professional reactions to the moment of the question. If asked the same question a year from now, their responses would likely change.
The MOMENTOS project connects consumer level photography users, professional level academics and arts and culture professionals.
At the core the proposed question, “What is your most important personal photograph?”, is an underlying investigation about photographs and value.
By producing this survey, this value can be observed from a variety of perspectives. MOMENTOS presents in an academic and fine art context, a range of responses by ordinary people that open the interpretation of what gives a photograph value beyond typical understandings of what photographic value is. Their responses do not relate to the collection of photographs for financial, cultural or historical reasons, but to value within the context of their own aspirations, idealizations, relationships or nostalgic sentiments. Personal photographic value in these cases refers to personal stories, histories and projections and reflections of identity.
In addition to investigating value in personal photographs, the current shift in consumer level photographic technology, from analog to digital is an inherent point of consideration particularly for future study. This shift will change not only the ways in which we produce photographic records, but also change how photographs are and will be, taken, read and collected.
Future analysis into digital consumer level photography in terms of image quality, production, distribution, and value could be a topic explored as this technology becomes even more predominant, and the death of film eminent.
