Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 5, No. 4, December 2004 Routledge Taylor &Ffancis Croup

^Everyone's cuddled up and it just looks really nice': an emotional geography of some mums and their family photos

Gillian Rose Geography, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

This paper is based on a small-scale, qualitative research project, which used in-depth, semi-structured interviews to explore what a particular group of middle-class, white mothers with young children were doing with their family photographs. It was evident from the interviews that this group of women felt ambivalent about their photos. On the one hand, photos were seen as precious objects which evoked intense emotional reaction; on the other, they were seen as banal and trivial. The paper explores this emotional paradox, and suggests that it is part of the spatial proximity so central to these family snaps, which the mothers described as 'togetherness'. This togetherness was also enacted, corporeally, in a number of ways in relation to the photos. The paper therefore also argues, more generally, that studies of visual imagery need to pay more careful attention to how particular images are engaged with in specific, diverse and multi-sensory ways when they are 'seen'.

Key words: photographs, family, togetherness, visuality, mothering.

Introduction of a small-scale qualitative project I have un- dertaken talking with a group of women about The Refugee Council in Britain has recently their family photos, the Council is correct in its heen distributing a leaflet appealing for funds. assumption. Family photos—photos taken by Its front and hack pages are the same: next to family members, of family members, for view- a picture of a clockface, the text asks, 'In just ing mostly by family members—are indeed ex- a few minutes soldiers will break down your traordinarily important, emotionally resonant door. They've already killed your father and objects. They are also seen, by that same group raped your daughter. Now they are coming for of women, as trite and banal. That is, these you. What should you take? Quick. Think. women feel that their photographs are at once Money? Your passport? A family photo? You intensely charged and embarassingly trivial. have two minutes left to decide'. This paper explores this emotional paradox, A family photo? Do we imagine that a family and its geography. In so doing, the paper does photograph is as vital to the survival of a not take as its focus specific emotions (although refugee as money and a passport? The Refugee I do mention some of them: embarrassment, Council clearly thinks we do. And on the basis love, happiness, for example). Rather, I am

ISSN 1464-9365 print/ISSN 1470-1197 online/04/040549-16 © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1464936042000317695 550 Gillian Rose interested in what I see as some of the qualities how albums are looked at by individuals, al- of the emotional as a specific modality of ex- though Slater (1995: 141) hypothesizes that 'at perience. These qualities are about the com- most, we look at photographs as a kind of plexity and unpredictability of emotions: their one-off reliving of a recent leisure experience' ambivalence and capriciousness, the way they and that while 'emotional investment in these can erupt unexpectedly, sometimes with sur- images maybe intense [it] is generally short— prising force, their efficacy, the way they can they gradually become invisible' (1995: 146). surprise and disrupt (as well as reinforce) what To the extent that the audiencing of these we think we know. And as I will go on to photos is given any attention, then, it seems to argue, thinking about the emotional in this be assumed that trivial images do not invite kind of way implies thinking about the geogra- sustained or intense viewing once their initial phies produced by that emotionality as simi- impact has worn off. larly complicated, eruptive and ambivalent. On the other hand, however, there is also a The emotional ambivalence expressed by my significant body of work on family photos that interviewees in relation to their family snaps is offers highly emotionally charged readings of in fact reflected by the academic literature on particular photographs. I am thinking here of a family photography; interestingly, though, that number of essays by British feminists, often reflection takes the form of a division in that working in a more or less tightly theorized literature between those critics that pay atten- psychoanalytic framework, which focus on a tion to the triviality of family snaps, and those childhood photograph of the author, often that prefer to emphasize the intensity of emo- taken by their father. These photographs are tions that they can evoke (see also Holland revisited, years after their making, by their 1997: 142). On the one hand, there are a num- subject, now a critic interested in the construc- ber of studies that stress the banality of family tion of (their own) classed and gendered subjec- photographs, and do so by emphasizing their titivities (see e.g. Kuhn 1995; Spence 1986; seemingly endless repetition of a very limited Walkerdine 1991). The results are intensely range of subject matter. Family photos almost emotional, for both author and reader. Walk- always show only happy family members at erdine (1991: 149-156), for example, in an es- leisure (the acceptable exception, as Spence say entitled 'Behind the painted smile', writes 1986 noted, is a snap or two of a screaming about an apparently sweet photo of herself baby). Two large-scale content analyses of dressed as the Bluebell Fairy when she was family photo albums that prove this limited three years old. As the title suggests, she tries to range conclude therefore that the subject mat- strip away the superficial prettiness of this ter of family snaps is 'astonishingly narrow' image in order to address 'the negative emo- (Halle 1993: 104; also Chalfen 1987); and hence tions covered over by all this sugar and spice' Stewart's (1984: 49) claim that 'all family al- (1991: 147), and in particular 'a terrible rage' bums are alike'. Chalfen's verdict (1987: 142) is (1991: 152). Her essay works with what she that they have an 'overwhelming sense of simi- calls 'traces' in the photograph, traces of that larity and redundancy' and Evans (2000: 112) rage, and in so doing she challenges those other comments that it is in family photography that accounts that emphasize the banality and invis- 'the most stultified and stereotyped repetoire of ibility of family photos. composition, subject-matter and style resides'. These two accounts of family photogra- None of these studies pay much attention to phy—one emphasizing its triviality and the Emotional geography of mums and family photos 551 superficiality of relations with it, the other images without ever actually investigating the emphasizing its ability to produce intense precise ways in which an audience other than emotional reactions—have very different theor- themselves might in fact be effected, or affec- etical starting points. Yet, as I have noted, it ted, by the imagery in question. seems necessary to think about the triviality Moreover, I do not think that exploring how and the intensity of relations to family photos, images are 'seen' necessarily or exclusively since my interview material suggests that both means investigating how they are 'interpreted' are at work in the viewing of family photos. or 'understood'. A few studies addressing vis- And indeed, one critic at least acknowledges ual culture do indeed examine how images are the ambivalence of reactions towards family made sense of by particular spectators by refer- photos. Sedgwick (2000: 342), in her account of ring to reviews, commentaries and criticism of bringing some photos of herself as a child to various visual objects (see e.g. Nead 1988 on her therapist, notes the mix of 'pride and nineteenth-century art exhibitions and Fyfe and peevishness' behind her choice of pictures: Ross 1996 on a contemporary museum). Yet pride in the 'unbroken circle of the handsome, images are encountered through a number of provincial Jewish family' shown in the snaps registers that far exceed the discursive: the and peevishness because the photos also hold bodily, the sensory, the psychic and the the possibility of carrying 'grown-up, full- emotional. Clearly, these are shorthand terms, throated grievances' that therapy might bring but I deploy them to indicate that in this paper, to consciousness (see also Spence and Holland I am trying to use 'seen' rather more literally, 1991). and corporeally. I am interested in how par- This paper argues that one way of pulling ticular spectators, as embodied subjects, experi- the intensity and the banality of photographs ence their viewing through a range of sensory into some kind of relation is to pay more and affective registers (see also Bruno 2002; attention to how photographs are seen. The Jacobs 1981). To draw on Crouch (2001), what literature on family photography is part of a is the feeling of doing family photos? much wider interest in what is being called In its focus on 'doing', my argument clearly 'visual culture' across a range of academic dis- sits within 'the performative turn' in the social ciplines (see e.g. Evans and Hall 1999; Mirzoeff sciences (see Nash 2000 for a review). Much of 1999; Sturken and Cartwright 2001; Walker the literature on family photography can be and Chaplin 1997). While this rich body of read as arguing that the taking and displaying work has produced fascinating interpretations of family photos performs and thus reproduces of the meaning of many kinds of visual ima- certain social formations—the heterosexual, gery, there are surprisingly few studies that pre-eminently—and its family classed, gendered explore the ways in which particular kinds of and racialized subject position. But, as I have visual images are seen by particular audiences already noted, the ordinary, everyday practices in particular places. While Mirzoeff's (1999: 1) through which this reproduction takes place (or claim that 'modern life takes place onscreen' is indeed fails to happen) is almost entirely ne- obviously overblown, there are in fact remark- glected. The more sociological literature pays ably few explorations of just how images of little attention to what is done with family various kinds are indeed encountered in mod- snaps, dismissing them as trivial and unimport- ern, everyday life. Instead, critics of visual cul- ant; and while the feminist psychoanalytic ture offer 'readings' of the 'effect' of specific literature has theorized particular moments of 552 Gillian Rose therapeutic and analytical viewing in great de- for example—can be assessed. tail, its overriding concern with the relation My initial decision to recruit only women for between a particular image and a particular this project was in fact based on a research subjectivity means that it has little to say about question I never managed to answer: what the quotidian practice of viewing photographs. happened to how family photography was Although this feminist literature takes represen- done when digital cameras and home comput- tations of the body as a central concern, it is ers took over from traditional cameras and much less interested in the embodied practices, family albums. There is quantitative evidence and practicalities, of family photographs: the to suggest that adult men and children domi- posing, the snapping, getting the film devel- nate home computer use (Anderson et al. 1999), oped, the sorting, storing, displaying, redisplay- and I had anecdotal evidence that women did ing, dusting and looking. I will argue instead most of the family photography work. If this that the everyday effects of family photography was indeed the case, what then happens when cannot be appreciated unless all that doing of family photos go digital? Would women use things with photos is understood as part of computers to do their photography work? how they are seen. Would men start to do it instead? These are My arguments here for the importance of the questions I cannot answer, since only one of doing of visual imagery are built on interviews the women I interviewed showed the slightest with fourteen women, in their own homes, in interest in digital cameras.^ But in fact, talking two towns in the south-east of England. All to women about what they did with photos these women lived with their husband and turned out to be central to this research, as I young children; in all but four cases their chil- will elaborate below, because their work with dren were too young to go to school. All the family snaps was a crucial part for them of mothers had worked outside the home before being a particular sort of woman: a mother.^ having children and nine had not returned to When I visited these women, then, I wanted paid work when I interviewed them, while the to try to explore a more phenomenological and other five worked part-time. They were all material approach to seeing. Our conversations white and, in my estimation of both their explored who took photos in their household, income levels and lifestyle, comfortably middle when and why, and what was done with the class. I recruited all but one by 'snowballing' photos once they were developed. I was taken through friendship networks (the exception, around every house to see photos on display, Claire, I saw photographing her boys in a local and in all but three cases I was shown many playground one day and approached her di- albums of photos as well, and sometimes boxes rectly). I recorded our interviews, and then too. I asked how these mums stored, framed interpreted the transcriptions of the interviews and placed their photos. How did they see their based on the method of discourse analysis out- photographs through these kinds of practices, I lined by Tonkiss (1998).^ My argument here is wondered? With what emotions, and what therefore based on a series of in-depth conver- meanings? Through what kind of visuality? sations with middle-class mums with young With what kinds of gestures? Through what kids and not in full-time paid work, and more kinds of voices and silences? And what kinds of comparative work is necessary before the spaces were (re)produced in that interaction? I (ir)relevance of the details of my argument for have suggested elsewhere that one kind of other people in different situations—refugees. space produced when this group of women Emotional geography of mums and family photos 553 look at their family photos was a peculiarly in their houses, even in the toilets; they were integrated domestic space (Rose 2003)."* Here, I 'dotted about', 'all round' and 'anywhere'. And focus on another spatiality: that of together- despite the enormous numbers of photos gener- ness. ated by this desire to photograph 'everything', 'Togetherness' is absolutely central to how only one of these women had ever thrown this group of women interact with their photos. away any photographs of their own children.^ In unpacking how it is done and how it feels, I Indeed, when I asked these mums if they ever will argue that it must be understood in terms had thrown photos away, the question was of that embodied sense of seeing I have just greeted with horror: 'I can't', 'Never', 'I been outlining. I will also argue that its particu- couldn't bear to'. lar dynamic is part of that emotional paradox Secondly, these women felt obliged to do a with which I opened this paper. 'Togetherness', lot with their photographs. Despite all the hard as performed by these women and their photos, work and tiredness caused by looking after is experienced in an emotional register that is young children, all the mums I spoke with both intense and banal, and its spatiality is made the time to date, sort, store, display and similarly ambivalent. Finally, I will also suggest circulate their photographs. It went without that this particular kind of emotional geogra- saying that the film should be developed. The phy has everything to do with the fact that its very least that should be done after that, they performers were mothers and photographs of felt, was that the photos should be dated, if the their children. camera did not do it for them. They described themselves as 'good' if they did this; as Emma M said, 'I was so good and labelled the fronts Feeling family photographs intensely of the, of the erm wallet, you know sort of Bonny first week, or Bonny first month'. Dating The importance of family photos to the women photographs might be seen as a part of 'good I talked with was evident in a number of ways. enough' mothering, in fact. Most photographs Firstly, all felt compelled to take photographs were then put into some kind of storage, but of their children, especially when those children some were chosen for display after much were very young (Titus 1976). The mums told thought about which photo should go in which me about the many, many photos they had frame where. Every mother except one I spoke taken of their kids when they were newborn: to was also either making a photo album or 'tons and tons', 'every time Cameron moved he planning time in the future to make one; going got to have a photograph', 'we've got pictures through photos and putting an album together of Jenny breathing, sort of, smiling, breathing, was seen as time-consuming and therefore eating', 'you know, everything he did—and difficult, but also as necessary and pleasurable. they don't do anything!—I went, "Take a And they all also sent many photographs of photograph, take a photograph," so we've got their children to certain relatives (especially like loads'. As their babies grew, all these mothers and mothers-in-law) and, much less mums agreed with Tina when she said, 'you often, to friends. just have to make a conscious effort to keep Thirdly, they all insisted that they looked at snapping away I think'. I was shown albums their photos often. They told me of pausing to and albums and boxes and boxes of photo- look while they dusted photograph frames, graphs, and photos were on display everywhere when they pulled curtains to at night, when 554 Gillian Rose they were just coming up and down the stairs I too have avoided labelling the emotional (the stairway wall is a very popular location for charge of family snaps, and I have explained displaying framed photos), and when they that refusal by pointing to my interest in ex- added new photos to an album. 'I love this ploring the complexity of emotionality rather album and I really love showing it to people', than in cataloguing a range of emotions. To- said Emma M, 'it's been a real pleasure looking wards the end of the paper, however, I will at it again tonight.' The intensity of this look- offer another reason for that refusal. But first ing was indicated by Claire, when she paused let me turn to this group of women's other while she was showing me one of the flip response to their photographs that I have men- albums she used to store her photos, and then tioned, when they feel the photos to be banal. said, 'this is amazing, I haven't looked at these for a long time', and paused again to take them in. Instead of pausing, Sharon punctuated her The banality of family photographs description of looking at photographs of her boy when he was a baby with an exclamation: Family photos, then, no matter how old, are important, emotionally resonant images for these women. Yet they also, in the interviews, When you sort of look back—and they do sort of repeatedly trivialized the photographs and their change and you don't notice it. But when you see it own relation to them. Photos were not always like that [gestures to a photo] you know, it's sort of, treated as particularly precious objects in and you go 'Oh God,' you know, and if I had another of themselves, for example: I was told of pho- [photo] there now, he'd just look really different tos 'shoved', 'bunged' and 'whammed' into again. storage boxes or albums. The practice of taking Claire, and all my other interviewees, affirmed photographs was also trivialized. All the mums the importance of their children changing and were laughing when we talked about just how growing to the intense reactions family snaps many photographs we had taken of our babies. can evoke: We were laughing at ourselves for our desire to photograph repeatedly babies who, as Fiona Well, you sort of look at your children and they said, are not doing anything—ending up with grow so quickly and it's, and, and I struggle to hundreds of photos showing more or less the remember everything and then I look at it, and it's same thing. But if the sheer numbers of photos sort of, oh it's, yes [pause], it's, you know time were funny they were also a bit embarrassing moves on so quickly and they're growing and they're when someone else was looking at them all. changing and it makes me feel a little bit sad that it's There were even suggestions that such a com- gone. pulsion to photograph was a kind of pathol- ogy: Sam described herself as going 'mad' when Claire's pause here is significant. Like Sharon's she took lots of photos on a recent trip with exclamation of 'Oh God', it marks the intensity her 2-year-old daughter to Australia to see her of her reaction to these pictures, an intensity brother, while Tina said she was 'getting bet- which the words that follow, 'a little bit sad', ter' now her kids were older and she was don't capture. But it is difficult to say exactly taking fewer photos of them. While most of what emotion that loaded pause is evoking. these women wanted to show me their albums Like Sharon's exclamation, it is empty of sub- and framed photographs, they also all urged stantial emotional content. So far in this paper me not to feel I had to look carefully at every Emotional geography of mums and family photos 555 single photo. Partly this was because they knew another range of reactions which emphasizes I did not know the people pictured—and as I how 'naff it all is: there are just too many will argue below, knowing the people pictured photos and they are way too predictable.^ is vital to the togetherness generated by view- ing family photos. But it was also due to the sheer numbers of photographs they had. Emma Togetherness and family photographs F, for example, said she used 'any excuse' to show her wedding album to visitors, but: When I asked my interviewees what their favourite photographs showed, 'togetherness' 'You don't like to bore people, do you. 'Would you was the word that was used. Togetherness is like to see my wedding album, it'll take an hour'! about spatial proximity, at least in part. But That's when I say, please flick through fast. Because what kind of proximity is important to family they're very samey. snaps? And how might the spatiality of togetherness help us to understand this appar- Emma's comment leads to the second kind of ent contradiction between a fierce attachment embarrassment with family snaps, and that is to photos and an embarrassment at what feels the predictability of what the photos showed. like their excessive proliferation and repetitive- ness? All the women were well aware, it seemed, that their photos might be seen as trite and banal The literature on family snaps pays attention because they knew that other collections of to 'togetherness' in terms of what family pho- tographs show. As has been demonstrated family photos contained photos of exactly the (Chalfen 1987; Halle 1993), family photos are same kind. Baby albums were felt to be es- rarely of individuals on their own (although my pecially generic, especially in the photos of impression is that this is less true of snaps of 'firsts': hospital visitors, first time home, first babies and toddlers than it is of older children outing, first smile, first solid food, first tooth, and adults). Snaps instead tend to show at least first steps, first pair of shoes, first birthday two family members. Drawing on work that party (when the album usually ends), 'all the understands 'togetherness' as a key aspect of usuals'. Although I was never told to Hick family and domestic life in Western culture (see quickly through these particular albums—baby e.g. Hunt 1989; Pennartz 1999; Madigan and albums, for most of my interviewees, were Munro 1999), it has been argued that the spa- especially resonant—nonetheless the mum tial proximity of family members in family showing me her collection of baby photos snaps symbolizes and reiterates the integration would make it clear she knew that it was of the family unit (see especially Bourdieu et al. hardly unique in its subject matter. 'You must 1990). have seen loads along the same lines', Jane W It is certainly the case that togetherness in said, and Jane M listed the conventional pic- the content of family snaps was very important tures in a sing-song voice as she showed them to the mothers I interviewed. Many of the to me, to indicate her awareness of their banal- albums I was shown contained a series of ity. Jeanette laughingly described herself as photos of a new baby with their every visitor— 'sad' for the predictability of the baby album 'every relation wants their photograph taken she had made. you know with with the new baby you As well as evoking reactions intense enough know'—and several mums took a photo every to halt speech, then, family photos also evoke time their child saw his or her grandparents. 556 Gillian Rose

And pictures of family members close together bers; thus Linda disliked a collage of photos were often particularly important to the mums her mother-in-law had put together because the I talked with. 'I like it cos we're just all to- only picture of her family was of herself, with gether', said Sharon, 'it's really nice, I just like her husband on their wedding day. All mem- the way everybody's sort of cuddled up and it's bers of a family need to be shown together just really nice.' Talking about a framed photo- through these multiple displays. Crowded to- graph on a bookcase in her living room, Karen gether in groups, photos as objects again regis- ter 'togetherness' as a central quality. explained why it was there: Moreover, the audiencing of family photo- graphs is also central to the togetherness that You know I suppose like lots of families you do get, they articulate. This audience can be immediate you do get together more often than just more often family. All the mums told me that they often than just weddings and funerals and Christenings or looked at family photos with their children, whatever. But you don't have your photograph and Claire said, 'When the weather's bad or taken together. And that was just a photograph just moments when we haven't got anything to together. do, I'll get the albums out, my husband enoys I now want to argue that togetherness is not looking at them, and the children do, so that's only done by looking at what a photograph when I feel it's of benefit'. Mums with younger shows, however. Togetherness is also done by children often remarked with surprise at how how photographs are displayed and how they much their babies and toddlers loved looking at family photos, and all the mothers I inter- are audienced (Fiske 1994). viewed who had pre-school children used pho- So, for example, the objects surrounding a tos as a means of teaching their children who photograph can also establish family connec- was who in the family. Like Karen, all were tions (Batchen 2000). A writing bureau, for delighted when their young children could tell example, in Tina's case: them the names of the people pictured: 'be- cause usually he he points people out, which is There's one of my grandparents there, my my erm great'. For mums with older children, photos grandmother died a couple of years back, and they were looked at together for fun, to fill a rainy actually left me, the the piece of furniture, that's afternoon, for school projects. why that will probably always stay on there. Togetherness appears too in the mothers' awareness that it is not only their gaze and that But most often, the objects surrounding a of their husband and children that will be photograph that indicate familial togetherness brought to bear on these displayed photos, are other photographs. About two-thirds of my however. The viewing of family snaps was interviewees had whole walls devoted to family understood by these women as a process also photos, which often included photos of their embedded in the context of wider family rela- parents and even grandparents, their husband's tions. These mothers were sensitive to the gazes family, themselves when much younger, as well of other family members. Many of them talked as pictures of their own children. Collages and about how family visiting their house would multiframes were popular too. These displays look at photos, and a duty to signal family were also seen as expressing togetherness. Some togetherness to this wider family through the mums were annoyed at displays of photos that appropriate display of photographs was keenly did not contain images of certain family mem- felt. As Claire said: Emotional geography of mums and family photos 557

Well, my mum's up there, my sister, my brother, my ing]'. This sense that photographs are a ma- father's not there, my er my husband's parents are terial extension of bodies that are, very often, up there, so the majority of people are there, so I distant or changed, is central to how photo- have tried to cover that, cos they do look and, graphs are seen—and explains the horrified 'Where am I?', [laughing] so I must get my dad up reaction when I asked these mums about there. throwing away photographs of their children. Throwing away a photograph would be like Indeed, three of tbe mums bad been given throwing away (part of) tbe cbild, as Sharon photographs of their husband's parents' wed- said explicitly. ding to put in a frame after their mother-in-law If photographs in some sense carry the pres- had visited and seen only a photo of the mum's ence of the person they show, then the feeling parents' wedding on display. of doing togetherness when they are looked at What is evident to me from these conversa- becomes quite tangible. For photographs are, tions is that the togetherness articulated literally, felt when they are audienced. This through family photos is experienced through was something I noticed repeatedly in the inter- bodily proximity. This is certainly the case in views. As my interviewees showed me their terms of what photographs show, and it is also photographs, they picked up photo frames and the case in terms of how they are seen. They gave them to me, they turned the pages of are looked at with others, or with others in albums and stroked particular photos, they mind, as I have demonstrated. Togetherness is took photos out of protective covers and thus constituted by the way their viewing is mounts to see them better and, I think, just to done, as well as what they show, as individual hold them. There is a tactility to looking at images and in groups. But I also want to insist family photos which is also about enacting a that this togetherness of bodily proximity in- corporeal closeness between the viewer and the cludes those people pictured. This togetherness person pictured.* This suggests that, as with so is made by seen and seeing bodies in interrela- many kinds of visuality, looking at photo- tion, because all my interviewees treated their graphs is not only visual. photographs as if they were part of the people pictured. That family photos carry a material trace of Corporeal togetherness and emotional the person photographed was taken absolutely paradox for granted in my interviews. Take, for exam- ple, the question every mother I spoke with The notion that photographs carry a trace of asked her child frequently: 'who's that in the the person they pictured is central to Roland photo?' That question—'who is it?', not 'who Barthes's (2000) book about photography. is shown by it?'—assumes that a photo is a Camera Lucida. Barthes is concerned to under- person. Almost every interviewee, at some stand the particularity of photographs as a point in our interview, spoke of a particular specific kind of visual image, and he locates its photograph as if it was the person it showed.^ specificity in the kind of viewing it produces. Diane talked to me about a framed picture of Most famously, Barthes argued that a photo- her mother that stands on the television in their graph, unlike any other type of image, could living room, for example, and said, 'Yeah I like contain what he called a punctum. While all her there. Er she'll stay in the lounge [laugh- photographs—like all kinds of images—partici- 558 Gillian Rose pate in systems and structures of cultural Bal and Bryson (1991: 184) argue strongly meaning, photographs, uniquely suggests that semiology 'is centrally concerned with re- Barthes, can also carry a certain kind of inter- ception'. Barthes is, of course, usually charac- ruption to meaning, and this interruption is the terized as one of the founders of semiological punctum. Barthes is explicit that not all photos analysis, and his book on photography amply have puncta, and also that puncta are specific bears out Bal and Bryson's claim. It is centrally to particular viewers: not everyone will see the concerned with what it feels like to look at same punctum. But when a punctum happens, photographs (and to be photographed). Indeed, it punctures the cultural codes through which a he begins the book by referring to Bourdieu et photograph signifies; Barthes (2000: 51) says al.'s (1990) work on amateur and family pho- that while 'the studium is ultimately always tography and saying that he felt he wanted to coded, the punctum is not'. This puncture is 'dismiss such sociological commentary; looking felt intensely by the spectator: 'a photograph's at certain photographs, I wanted to be a primi- punctum is that accident which pricks me (but tive, without culture', and in those certain pho- also bruises me, is poignant to me)' (Barthes tographs he 'saw only the referent, the desired 2000: 27). And one of the causes of a punctum object, the beloved body' (Barthes 2000: 7, my is an encounter with the real corporeality a emphasis). Camera Lucida is structured by photo carries. Barthes's search after his mother's death for a In Camera Lucida, Barthes brings together photograph which reminds him of her as she his semiological concern for systems of was, and he tells his reader that he found the meaning with a psychoanalytic concern photo tbat did that when he was sitting in her for a real beyond cultural signification; apartment one November evening, alone, 'un- Barthes's discussion of the punctum evokes der the lamp', picking up photograph after Lacan's notion of the Real. In some ways, photograph (Barthes 2000: 63-72). He takes then, Barthes is bringing together the two several pages to describe, as he says, inade- theoretical traditions outlined at the beginning quately, the impact of the photo on him and his of this paper. On the one hand, there are reaction to it, and his study repeatedly notes those, often sociologists, who look at the the specificities of particular moments of look- structures and patterns of meaning conveyed ing at photographs. Both the studium and the in family photos and conclude that they do punctum are ways of seeing photographs. little more than reiterate a specific form of I have already commented that in the inter- familial ideology; and on the other hand, there views that constitute this project, I too was are those, often inspired by psychoanalysis, concerned with the dynamics of particular mo- who have looked at the psychic dynamics at ments of spectating. And Barthes's account of work in particular images and emphasized looking at photographs is very helpful in mak- much more the intense emotional charge they ing sense of the emotional ambivalence shown can carry in their formation of subjectivities. by my interviewees towards their photographs. Barthes pulls these two together by combining For I would argue that their acute awareness of a concern for meaning and the studium of the cultural codes which patterned their frames photographs with an appreciation of what is and albums and photographs—their awareness beyond meaning: the punctum. And he does so of the studium which governs family photogra- by paying very careful attention in his book to phy—produces their sense of the banality of the act of looking. photographs. Photographs can be 'just flicked Emotional geography of mums and family photos 559 through' or 'bunged into albums' or seen as ing that only the punctal moments of spectator- 'naff by these mums because they know that ship were emotional, however. Clearly, the their photography work is in no sense unique; punctum of a photograph can indeed evoke they are following the rules of a well-estab- some very intense emotions; but then so too lished genre. can the studium, as the anger with which the However, the intensity with which these banality of family photographs have been at- mothers also experienced looking at their pho- tacked by feminist critics in particular attests. tographs suggests moments of corporealized And the punctum may also be experienced in punctal interruption to that predictability. I more muted ways, too, in ways that perhaps saw and heard the arrows of puncta fly in my my dependence on interview material would interviews repeatedly, and I have already men- find hard to detect. Nor, then, should the tioned two: Claire's pause while looking at emotional be equated with the inexpressible; photographs of her boys eating cakes, and some feelings may be hard to express, but Sharon's exclamation at how her boy was others are not. What is also important to re- changing. Another would be the repeated 'so's member when working with Barthes's account that pepper descriptions of (photos of) new- of photography, however, is the specificity of the punctum and his concern to ground the born babies: 'she's so grey', 'she was so tiny', effect of a photograph in a particular moment 'he was so scrunched up and red', 'her skin is of viewing. My interviewing strategy, while just so perfect', 'he was just so beautiful'. The perhaps not ideal for detecting all puncta, was intensity carried by the 'so' in these descrip- effective in enabling me to describe what some tions of photos are gestures indicating a punc- women did with their photographs. It enabled tal spectating at the limits of meaning, I think. me to witness that doing and thus to come to I have also noted that I did not want to label a rather different understanding of the effects the emotional content of these moments, and I of family photography from those critics unin- hope now that the reason is evident: if these are terested in that doing. Certainly, family pho- indeed puncta, they are beyond the codes with tography carries powerfully conservative which we name emotions. A punctum is out- visions of familiality and identities, but it does side the range of interview talk. The limited other things too, and if we want to grasp some grasp that language has to express punctal of those things, including the emotional geogra- moments also accounts for the limited explana- phies that are produced when mothers encoun- tions the mums I talked with gave me for why ter photos of their own children, we need to certain photographs were their favourites. In engage with acts of seeing more carefully, more each interview I asked them to show me a closely. favourite photograph, and I asked why it was a favourite. The quotation in the title of this paper—'it just looks really nice'—is typical of the answers I received. 'It's nice', 'I just like it', Spatial proximity, family photographs— and mothering 'it grabbed my eye', 'they're nice pictures'. The thinness of these explanations is not an indi- I have argued, then, that looking at family cation of these women's banality, but of the photographs, for this particular group of difficulty of articulating the pull of something women, entails a paradoxical emotional state, excessive to codes of culture. because they feel both tbat their photos are I should be clear here that I am not suggest- extraordinarily precious and that they are silly 560 Gillian Rose and banal. I have argued that this paradox can example (there is also a clear etiquette about be understood by drawing on Barthes's account which family members should be sent what of seeing photography, and particularly his no- sorts of photos and how often). But I do not tions of the studium and the punctum. The think this can fully account for the commit- banality of looking at family photographs en- ment these mothers had to their photographs. acts their studium, while those moments of Instead, I started to think about the relation- pause or shock or repetition are punctal. As I ship between a mother and her child—or at have noted, bodily proximity is central to both least, between a white middle-class mother and ways of seeing. I have suggested that the group- her own, able-bodied child. Is there something ings of those photographed, the photographs about this sort of mothering in particular that themselves and those looking at photographs invites or demands a close relationship to pho- are all structured by a discourse of 'together- tographs? For it slowly became apparent to me ness' that is central to Western familial ideol- that, although so many of the photos I was ogy. Precisely because photographs carry a shown were of children, the active subject in trace of the bodies they picture, they are a very relation to the photo was the mother (see also powerful means for doing togetherness, even Gallop 1999; Hirsch 1997; Leonard 1999). when—indeed, especially when (Sontag I have argued that photos carry a part of the 1978)—families are scattered. But that trace of person they picture, and in that sense they—the corporeality is also shocking, says Barthes; it is photo and the person—are real, beyond repre- an encounter with a real beyond culture. Hence sentation. They simply are. But that very qual- my claim that togetberness, in tbe form of ity of tbe image also meant that in tbe bodily proximity, is one of the emotional ge- interview, the children in the photos were not ographies of family photographs. produced as the active subjects of photography. What I would like to reflect on a little more They were just there, real, 'natural', their 'es- tentatively at this point is relevance of mother- sence' captured (to use another frequent de- ing to my argument.' I have already noted that scription of what kinds of photos these mothers I chose to interview women for this project liked best). Although the children were corpo- because I wanted to explore what was happen- realized very powerfully in the photos, in our ing to family photography when a household interview their embodiment and subjectivity started using a digital camera. As I also noted, was interpreted entirely by their mother. There I was not able to pursue that line of enquiry. was no discussion, for example, of whether a What did strike me immediately from the inter- child might be posing even when they looked views, however, was the huge amount of time 'natural', for example. Photographs, then, seem and energy these busy and tired women put to be very much about mothering. into their family snaps. Why were these moth- In her recent essay on mothering, Hollway ers so committed to all this photography work? (2002) works towards specifying mothering as a What, to put it crudely, was in it for them? particular kind of (partly unconscious) inter- Well, some of that work is enforced by tbose subjectivity. In brief, she argues that mothering norms of familial ideology, of course. As I have is the relationship between the mother and her noted, there are certain expectations about child. (This may seem obvious, but much of the family photography that are held not only by feminist literature on mothering positions the these mums but also by their wider family, mother and the child as two autonomous sub- about what photos should be on display, for jects whose needs are in conflict.) She explores Emotional geography of mums and family photos 561 the particular difficulty of that relationship for and put back in their place, unlike actual chil- mothers when their children are very young. As dren. Photos do not return of their own vol- she says, 'there is a period in children's ition time and time again. The album can be lives ... when their ruthlessly narcissistic de- opened and then closed and put back on the mands place terrible strain on mothers, since, shelf. Photographs, even if their display is not in this relationship, they [the mother] are get- always under the mother's complete control, ting no consideration whatsoever' (Hollway can be narrativized by the mother how she 2002: 23; see also Hollway and Featherstone wants to herself. Photos do not answer back. 1997). It may in fact be an especially difficult Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that, as I have time for the middle-class mothers I interviewed, noted, children are photographed most fre- since, according to Bailey (2000) and Lupton quently in exactly that period when they are (2000), middle-class mothers in particular have most demanding and, therefore, their mother very high ideals about what good mothering most ambivalent. Looking at photogtaphs, entails. For them, a good mother can give total then, may produce a proximal space in which love and attention to their child. Yet, as Holl- the ambivalence of a certain kind of mothering way goes on to argue, mothers are bound to can be encountered on its own shifting ground. feel ambivalent about their extremely demand- For the photo carrying the trace of the child's ing children. As well as love, they will feel what body can evoke all the love and the hate be- Hollway, drawing on Kleinian psychoanalysis, cause it is looked at and then put away. The calls hate. Hate, here, does not refer to intense photograph, and the (trace of the) child is put hatred, but rather to anything that is not un- away and the hate, for a moment, is done. conditional love: irritation, dislike, guilt, obli- Perhaps then, for some mothers, the most im- gation, and so on. Hollway (2002: 22) suggests portant part of doing family photography is that while maternal 'hate' is inevitable, and when the looking stops. indeed a necessary part of the child's develop- ment (since a child can only be recognized as a subject by a subject she sees as different from Acknowledgements herself), hateful feelings towards children are not necessarily acted out. This paper was first presented at the conference In thinking about the interviews I conducted, on Emotional Geographies held at Lancaster and about my own ways of seeing photographs University in 2002. I would like to thank all the of my children, I would like to suggest that participants there who responded to this paper, perhaps one of the reasons hateful feelings particularly Erica Burman and Joyce Davidson. towards children are not acted out by this Caroline Wiedmer also made very helpful com- group of women, at least, is because photo- ments on an earlier version. The research was graphs can work to steady the ambivalent feel- funded in part by a Small Research Grant from ings of love and hate that most mothers have the British Academy. towards their children. The photographic trace of the child can evoke the most powerful togetherness for these mothers, a corporealized Notes loving togetherness beyond words. But the 1 As well as recording most of the interviews, I made trace of a child in a photo is also miniaturized detailed notes after each one about gestures and body and mute. Photos can be picked up, studied language; interpreting the interviews, I tried to pay as 562 Gillian Rose

much attention to pauses and silences and hesitations as Bal, M. and Bryson, N. (1991) Semiotics and art history. to the spoken words. Art Bulletin 73: 174-208. 2 The only woman who showed any interest in digital Barthes, R. (2000) Camera Lucida Reflections on Photogra- cameras had a mother-in-law who was a professional phy, trans. Howard, R. London: Vintage. photographer who had used digital cameras for a long Batchen, G. (2000) Vernacular photographies. History of time. Photography 24: 262-271. 3 One preliminary indication of this is that although most Bourdieu, P. with Boltanski, L., Castel, R., Chamboredun, of my interviewees disliked being photographed, they J.-C. and Schnapper, D. (1990) Photography: A Middle- all told me that they had made sure that they had brow Arty trans. Whiteside, S. Cambridge: Polity Press. photographs of themselves with their children. I should Bruno, G. (2002) Atlas of Emotion: Journeys into Art, also emphasize at this point that these are all heterosex- Architecture and Film. London: Verso. ual mothers. Indeed, it struck me on many occasions Chalfen, R. (1987) Snapshot Versions of Life. Bowling when I visited these houses that the ubiquitous display Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular of family photographs was a very powerful example of Press. the heterosexing of domestic space. Crouch, D. (2001) Spatialities and the feeling of doing. 4 This paper also theorizes the claim made here and not Social & Cultural Geography 2: 61—75. elaborated, that it is in the performative relation be- Evans, J. (2000) Photography, in Carson, F. and Pa- tween image and spectator that the space of display is jaczkowska, C. (eds) Feminist Visual Culture. Edin- produced. burgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 105—120. 5 This mother had thrown out all her family photos that Evans, J. and Hall, S. (1999) Visual Culture: The Reader. were not in albums or frames when she emigrated to London: Sage in association with The Open University. England from South Africa. Fiske, J. (1994) Audiencing, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, 6 Non-English readers may need 'naff and 'sad' as used Y.S. (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Methods. London: in this context explained. 'Naff means a bit inept, a bit Sage, pp. 123-141. tasteless; 'sad' is a light-hearted reference to being in Fyfe, G. and Ross, M. (1996) Decoding the visitor's gaze: need of pity. rethinking museum visiting, in MacDonald, S. and Fyfe, 7 I have elaborated this referentiality elsewhere (see Rose G. (eds) Theorizing Museums. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003). pp. 127-150. 8 This is why the women I spoke with were so unin- Gallop, J. (1999) Observations of a mother, in Hirsch, M. terested in digital cameras, I think. Digital images do (ed.) Family Photographs: Content, Meaning and Effect. not have the same tactile facticity as traditional photo- Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 67—84. graphs. They do not feel the same. Halle, D. (1993) Inside Culture: Art and Class in the 9 These comments must be tentative for two reasons. American Home. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Firstly, I have rather little interview evidence to support Hirsch, M. (1997) Family Frames: Photography, Memory them. Secondly, as Hollway (2002) argues, understand- and Post-narrative. Harvard, MA: Harvard University ing the dynamics of mothering is an extraordinarily Press. complex project because of women's very different Holland, P. (1997) 'Sweet it is to scan...': personal photo- psychic histories. graphs and popular photography, in Wells, L. (ed) Pho- tography: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, pp.103-150. Hollway, W. (2002) From motherhood to maternal subjec- References tivity. Critical Psychology 2: 13-38. Hollway, W. and Featherstone, B. (eds) (1997) Mothering Anderson, B., McWiliam, A., Lacohee, H., Clucas, E. and and Ambivalence. London: Routledge. Gershuny, J. (1999) Family life in the digital home: Hunt, P. (1989) Gender and the construction of home life, domestic telecommunications at the end of the twentieth in Allan, G. and Crow, G. (eds) Home and Family: century, BT Technology Journal 17: 85-97. Creating the Domestic Sphere. London: Macmillan, Bailey, L. (2000) Bridging home and work in the transition pp. 66-81. to motherhood. The European Journal of Women's Jacobs, D.L. (1981) Domestic snapshots: towards a gram- Studies 7: 53-70. mar of motives. Journal of American Culture 4: 93-105. Emotional geography of mums and family photos 563

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'Todos estdn acurrucados y simplemente parece y sugiere que forma parte de la proximidad chulo': una geografia sentimental de algunas espaciai tan fundamental en estas fotos famil- madres y sus fotos familiares iares; lo que las madres llaman 'union'. Esta Este papel se basa en una investigacion cualita- 'union' fue representada tambien de manera tiva a escala pequena, que utliza entrevistas corporea, de varios modos en relacion con las semi-estructuradas para explorar lo que un fotos. Por lo tanto el papel tambien sugiere, por grupo de madres blancas de la clase media con regla general, que los estudios de imagineria hijos pequenos hacian con sus fotos familiares. visual deberian prestar mas atencion a como la Segiin las entrevistas, era evidente que este gente se relaciona con imagenes de modos es- grupo de mujers tenia sentimientos encontrados pecificos, diversos y multi-sensoriales a la hora hacia las fotos. Por un lado, se veian las fotos de verlas. como objetos preciosos que provocaban una reaccion emocional muy intensa; por otro lado se consideraban las fotos como banales y triv- Palabras claves: fotografos, familia, 'union', vi- iales. El papel explora esta paradoja emocional sualizar, mimar.