review: irene ziehle & ulrich hägele (eds.) (2004). fotografien vom alltag – fotografieren als alltag [photographs of everyday life—taking photographs in everyday life]

The reader looks at the meaning of (everyday) photographs for ethnography and cultural studies. It deals with the methodological implications of both the photograph as a research object and the taking of photographs as a research method. Some contributions describe selected methods—for example, photo archiving or photo interpretation. Most chapters reconstruct photo practices in everyday life (i.e. the work of photo studios in department stores or sanatoriums) or present the results of photo analyses (e.g., family photo albums, photo collections of companies, or photo contributions of magazine readers). The book covers a whole conference and delivers 21 exciting, but fairly heterogeneous chapters; it would have benefited from a tighter structure. The focus is on the 20th and 19th centuries and ample photo material is provided. One thing this book, the first volume of a series on visual culture, does not do is build a bridge to the era of digital photography. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0703181