Picturing Society

In the article, Family Photograph Appreciation, Richard Chalfen discusses a teenage view

of the relation between family snapshots and home videos. He first explains the value of

personal photos using an example of natural or humanly coerced disasters and the mourning of

visual traces of the past, or in other words, photographs. Family photographs are a very

important aspect of peoples lives and without them we may never remember our past. By

looking at snapshots, slides, home movies, etc, we stimulate our memory of important dates and

events. He asks many questions about memory and video verses photography which will be

discussed with teens he has interviewed.

Chalfen has structured an exploratory project that asked a small sample of thirty

teenagers, living in the Cambridge/Boston areas of Massachusetts to evaluate the relative merits

of using still photography and/or videography as a preferred medium of family photography.

(Richard Chalfen) He conducted the interviews with two teens at a time while having a meal in a

small restaurant. He was interested in their opinions on comparing photography and

videography, which came out to be very interesting.

The teens explained to him about the effects of video tapes and how they were a way of

"being there" all over again. Some of them felt it was more realistic than flipping through a

picture album. Here we will introduce a few more of the theories made by teens during their

interviews. Videotapes seem to supply the viewer with more information and makes it easy to

remember. You get sound and movement to enhance the overall effect which brings you to see

the whole experience. In many interviews the teens did not feel that videos were the best way to

go. By looking at photographs it set off a whole lot of memories, not just what happened play by

play like a home video. By looking at photographs you can use your imagination and over the

years the stories from one picture will grow and change. You don't have to think when you

watch videos but by looking at photographs you search your memory for the details. One girl

explained that she can look at photos over and over but watching a video will get boring after a

few times. Perhaps we can conclude from this that there is a higher liking of still photographs

over videography by most teens. They seem to be willing to put some work into collecting this

important information.

To explain the difference, Chalfen discusses some examples, such as the two acting as

memory aids in their own significant way. High vs low context is also a difference between the

two. Videos are