Page 125 - Cultural Studies Volume 11

COLLECTING LOSS 119

My father ‘…lipstuckedin,as silent as he is today.’

Crucial to this world are my photographs: some are made of soft matte paper
printed with sepia tones, others are made of glossy paper printed with stark black
and white, others are losing themselves in the faded colours of early colour
photography, still others feature the surreal spaces of the Polaroid camera. My
family’s drawers, albums and boxes (and those of many other middle-class
families) have been filling up with photographs ever since the invention of the
carte de visite (the beginnings of cheap photography) and the never-ending
succession of photographic inventions: mass-produced hand cameras (the
Brownie, the Kodak, the Lilliput, the Tom Tumb, the Frena); drugstore
developing; Sears’ value packs; school portraits; class photos; disposable cameras.
Using such products of the photographic enterprise, my own grandmother spent
the last years of her life preparing elaborate scrapbooks/photograph albums on
each of her two sons to be left to us after her death.