What is vernacular photography? 

Vernacular photography is the creation of photographs usually by amateur or unknown photographers both professional and amateur who take everyday life and common things as subjects. Closely linked to vernacular photography is found photography, which refers to the recovery of a lost or discarded vernacular photograph or snapshot. Found photographs can be found at carboots, charity shops or hidden away in attics. I decided to research this particular genre of photography because a great of the images I have previously posted have been amateur photography which is vernacular style. This photography is very hard for those that are professionally trained photographers. I think this is a really interesting genre because it lets you capture photographs in reality because life isn’t perfectly framed or focused; there are mistakes and distorted shapes and angles therefore it reflects the complications of life perfectly especially in relation to family and community. 

How can I incorporate vernacular photography into my work?

Particular photographs I am planning on taking are defiantly going to be in this style. I want to incorporate this style with the theme I am focusing on, with regards to my family project vernacular photography will be the perfect style to highlight the feelings and thoughts of my grandfather. Most of my family photographs which I have posted previously on the blog are vernacular photography. 

Some of the gatherings I want to take will be in Public spaces, and in some cases on public transport, namely the buses. When doing some research on Street photography I came across Nick Turpin, over three winters he used the dark evenings to discretely photograph the top decks of the london double decker buses. About his own work he said

“the pictures reveal intimate moments of commuters journeys between work and home, a strange lost time that they fill by reading, sleeping, staring, thinking and engaged with their tablets and phones” – Nick Turpin

I personally really like these images because of the blurriness and distortion of them. I love the way the smudges and drips and steam on the glass, it gives the same effect as when people overlay images of textures, like writing or trees to add more depth to the image or make it seem weathered.

Because of this texture the people are mostly clear but their surroundings are very blurred and just appear as colour, which is how it tends to feel when you’re sat on a bus, trying to ignore the people around you.

“People in transit tend to adopt a small temporary territory, their seat, their bit of window, their half of the arm rest and they diligently ignore those around them in the hope of being themselves ignored. Words are not spoken, eye contact is not made. You will not see these people again, emotional investment is considered pointless.” – Nick Turpin

The distortion means you can’t see every detail of the person perfectly, again like if you were on the bus yourself, you may remember the colour of someones hair who was sat in front of you, or what book someone was reading, but you never pay full attention to every detail of any particular person, and in these photos, although you are being almost forced to study what the person looks like and is doing, you can’t fully, because of the blur.

 Although I am particularly intrigued by these photos, there are other photographers who have done transport photography, (mentioned by Turpin himself on his own blog), but they have all adopted their own style/way of framing their images, with Turpin, he frames the image around the window, similarly, so did photographer John Schabel. He took the images from the end of an airport runway using a 500mm reflex lens with a 2x teleconverter lens, without anyone’s permission, the grainy images show the passengers in their thought before the plane takes off.

He frames the people within the plane window,which focuses the viewer in on the small and centred ‘action’ of the image. Some of the images, like with Turpin, have rain and distortion, which only adds more mystery to the image.

Another photographer who did transport photography, but looking at it from a completely different angle is Christophe Agou. He took a closer and more personal approach to transport photography with no window between him and his subjects. Whilst they still don’t seem to realise that they are being photographed and so are still shown in they own mental bubble.

I find this style of photography really interesting as well, because of how personal the images feel. I want to try and take photos of gatherings and public places, but I want to try and remove the personal-ness. Partly because its very hard to take up close and personal images without people noticing, and also because I want to show of the places, not so much the people within the places, but I may experiment with me personal images of people in public places, and see how they could fit into the photo book I plan on making when i’ve gathered all the images.