Beyond Illustration Illuminatiotts of the P Hotographic "Frontier" Carol J
Williams: Beyond lllustration: Illuminations of the Photographic "Frontier" JOW, Spring 2007, Vol. 46, No.2 - 29 Beyond Illustration Illuminatiotts of the P hotographic "Frontier" Carol J. Williams HOTOGRAPHS promise a luminous doorway For what purpose was the photograph produced at into history, but only through systematic contex- what Roland Barthes calls the "point of transmis- tual interpretation will riches be excavated. Like sion"?3 other primary resources, such as personal diaries What, in your estimate, might have been the intent of or letters, photographs require systematic analysis to the photographer, or subject, in taking the image? reveal full their potential. Consider Laurel Thatcher Has the meaning, or intention, changed as the photo- Ulrich's historical interpretation of the life and labor of graph has circulated among users and over time? an eighteenth-century midwife derived from Martha This essay considers three genres of photographs Ballard's diary. Ballard's diary seemed so spare that landscape, portraiture, and images of "Indian life."- I earlier researchers failed to detect its value.'Yet Thatch- draw on my research on photography in the Pacific er Ulrich artfully teased out myriad intersecting social Northwest to demonstrate an interpretative method use- histories, relationships, characters, maps, criminal acts, ful for researchers, teachers, and students alike. Theories and interpersonal antagonisms. and methods from an interdisciplinary affay of scholars, So too photographs. As Shawn Michelle Smith re- including Roland Barthes, John Collier, Catherine A. cently noted in her analysis of 363 photographs as- Lutz, Jane L. Collins, Martha Sandweiss, Shawn Mi- sembled by W. E. B Du Bois in albums for theAmerican chelle Smith, Joanna Scherer, and Geoffrey Batchen, Negro Exhibit at the Paris exposition in 1900, contem- among others, inform my views.o porary understanding of historical photographs proves Always keep in mind this fundamental practice: Nev- difFrcult.
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