[Personal_archives] Last thoughts of the first day

[Martha Langford]

About the notion of photographs as launching pads for oral history: 
aren't we really talking about memory? What I've argues elsewhere about 
the relationship between memory and photography in photographic albums 
is that the content and organization of the photographs preserve the 
characteristics of orality - that is, the photographs are a scaffolding 
for storytelling and conversation. I think this recognition is important 
because it changes the way we read the album - we should not read it, as 
a book, but understand that the narrative is, as you say, 
multi-directional. Orality offers both narrative and its interruption.

Our fascination with photography is its provision of visual facts and 
photographic experience in one neat package. Photographic interpreters 
like facts, but they are also drawn to good yarn and they look for its 
spark in the image. Photographs are not just taken, they are occasioned 
by a constellation of factors that make the moment seem significant.

'Night all.