Doing Family Photography

Family photography a ubiquitous domestic tradition in the developed world is now more popular than ever thanks to the development of digital photography. Once uploaded to PCs and other gadgets photographs may be stored deleted put in albums sent to relatives and friends retouched or put on display. Moreover in recent years family photographs are more frequently appearing in public media: on posters in newspapers and on the Internet particularly in the wake of disasters like 9/11 and in cases of missing children. Here case study material drawn from the UK offers a deeper understanding of both domestic family photographs and their public display. Recent work in material culture studies geography and anthropology is used to approach photographs as objects embedded in social practices which produce specific social positions relations and effects. Also explored are the complex economies of gifting and exchange amongst families and the rich geographies of domestic and public spaces into which family photography offers an insight.