Page 100 - Consuming Media

01Consuming Media 10/4/07 11:17 am Page 87

There is also a framing service in the shop. The Gallerix assortment of greetings cards
is the largest and most varied of any Swedish company.
There is no accepted descriptive term that encompasses both photography and the
purchase and exchange of cards and posters. Photography in the primarily private
sphere is usually referred to as family or amateur photography. Elsewhere we have
argued for the term ‘vernacular’ as more appropriate to cover the range of activities
and meanings these images have in daily life. 10 Photographs taken by amateurs are
appearing with greater frequency in the public sphere, including news photographs,
and the iconography of these images is often imitated in advertising and film. The
vernacular develops as a kind of visual dialect that borrows elements from popular
culture in its construction. In this sense, the term can easily be used to include the
ways cards and posters are used by the people who buy them.
Despite the importance that people attach to the images they take, make and
collect for their private use, these practices are a neglected aspect of media research.
The everyday uses of photographs, cards and posters confound traditional divisions
between media production and consumption. Examining how media consumers
select, purchase, use and eventually dispose of these images can, in line with the theo-
retical framework of the research project as a whole, extend the boundaries of media
research.
The two photographic shops have very different profiles, already evident in their
respective names. The Kodak Image Centre, like its counterparts the world over, is
dominated by the company’s yellow colour and familiar logo. The floor plan and
design are standardized according to the company concept. The birch counters are
complemented by shelves and countertops in a light slate grey, a colour repeated in
the employee’s shirts. In the centre of the shop a large basket is piled high with film,
the current special offer at Kodak Images Centres across Sweden. Fuji’s Photo Gang,
on the other hand, is part of a locally owned chain of five shops in the Stockholm
area. In the shop Fuji green mixes with hand-painted signs and labels in a range of
bright colours. Boxes covered with silver paper and containing an assortment of
photo albums are arranged on the floor. A TV monitor behind the counter is always
on, showing either the Eurosport channel or, more often, a Disney video. The staff
do not wear name tags or uniforms.
The pictures on display underscore the shops’ different profiles. In the Kodak
Image Centre, four identical illuminated photographs are mounted on the back wall,
clearly visible from the shop entrance. These are changed several times a year. During
the summer, two little girls giggle from under their straw hats, and in the winter we
see a father with his children on a ski slope against a deep-blue sky. These photo-
graphs are not like images from a family album; they represent instead the dream of
the ideal family vacation. The pattern is repeated in other images throughout the
store. The same picture, often of a smiling blond child, appears again and again on
signs, posters and other labels in the current advertising campaign.
In the Fuji shop there are even more photographs on display, yet here all of them
are different. Some are large colour prints of people dressed up in fancy party clothes

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