Courtesy of the collection of Robert E. Jackson

A new photobook pairs vintage watermarked “proof” photographs with prose to create stories of anonymous people.

What happens to the memories behind anonymous, discarded photos? What can we know about a person when all we have is a snapshot - discovered in an old shoebox, in a bin at some vintage store, or an archive some stranger is hocking on Ebay? What stories do we create in our minds to color the photos we find? In the case of Proof, published by emerging photobook imprint Sleeper Studio, sequencing such anonymous photographs with literary fiction can be an opportunity to provide new meaning.

Proof is a selection of vernacular proof photos from the collection of Robert E. Jackson, curated by publisher, photographer, and fellow vernacular-obsessor Ben Alper. On its own, it’s a bizarre testimonial to pre-Photoshop retouching. A nod to historical obsessions with fantasies of beauty and perfection. Red lines stretch across faces, cutting them up, scrutinizing, and suggesting “improvement.” Instructions for removing wrinkles. An opportunity to take home a memento of a major life event – a wedding or a graduation. Watermarks assuring a sale.

As images alone, Proof shows the power of images to deceive. But there’s more. The images are accompanied by texts by Edith Fikes - narrative lists and long-form tales that create new fictions for these images. Captions like: “I had my first auto accident when I wasn’t wearing my glasses. I was driving my father’s new car” and “Connie and Dean’s wedding, 1950. (Dean married Constanza and she changed her name to Connie.)” create a surreal historical memoir. It’s nostalgic but we’re not sure what for, a narrative that is as equally open-ended as it is specific.

I contacted Fikes, Alper, and Jackson to learn more about their process and ideas.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Edith Fikes, Ben Alper, and Robert E. Jackson

PostedDecember 16, 2020

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesPhotobooks

TagsProof photographs, Sleeper Studio, Robert E. Jackson, vernacular photography, best photobooks of 2020, snapshot photography, word and image, Edith Fikes, Ben Alper, interviews with photography collectors

It used to be easy to be patriotic. Now in this irony-laced age with its pervading sense of fatalism, apathy and cynicism, "love of country" seems passé or old-fashioned. While patriotism today is often solely equated with a love of guns and the freedom to bear arms, it should be more than that. It should be about pride in the values that this country claimed to be founded on, not prejudicial nationalism and the closing of our borders and isolationism. We must be able to live among a mix of cultures, races and religions if our country is to survive as a great nation. Respect and love and the ability to listen to different viewpoints is an important goal for all of us citizens to aspire to. I hope these photos from my collection give a brief, optimistic pause during this patriotic holiday and show a positive and somewhat humorous side to patriotism.
- Robert E. Jackson

PostedJuly 1, 2016

AuthorRobert E. Jackson

Tagspatriotism, July 4th, snapshot photography, vernacular photography, Robert E. Jackson

Joe Rudko is quickly becoming one of the most pivotal figures within the Pacific Northwest emerging art and photography community. His collages of found vernacular photographs, sourced from thrift stores, antique shops, snapshot collectors and, most recently, from a family archive discovered in abandoned shed in Washington State, turn anonymous, expired histories into sculptural monuments. Building on traditions ranging from the Dadaists of the early 20th century to the 1970's and early 1980's Pictures Generation, and even the recent work of Penelope Umbrico, Rudko's work makes appropriation exciting again. Like Umbrico, Rudko goes beyond simply re-contextualizing of found imagery. He tears up recurring tropes in family snapshots - clouds, water, sunsets and shadows - and reframes them to unveil a collective experience of viewing and valuing the world. We spoke with Rudko on the occasion of his solo exhibition, Album, on view through July 2nd at PDX Contemporary in Portland, Oregon.

PostedJune 23, 2016

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Exhibitions

TagsJoe Rudko, Seattle emerging artists, vernacular photography, snapshot photography, PDX Contemporary, new photography, Northwest Photographers, artist interviews, vintage photographs

Lurking in Robert E. Jackson's collection of more than eleven thousand American snapshots are some of the most peculiar photographs of ordinary people posing for the camera in their Halloween "best." Culled from anonymous family photographs found in auctions and other carefully selected archives, Jackson's eye for the curious and absurd remains unrivaled. "I am interested in the dark side of snapshots, " says Jackson, " and what they tell us about our deepest fears and motivations. There is a voyeuristic side to collecting which searching for Halloween photos brings out. It is the hidden which attracts."

So behold 13 of Jackson's unsettling Halloween gems. See more on his Instagram feed, or learn more about his practice in an interview we conducted earlier this year.

PostedOctober 28, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesPortfolio

TagsRobert E. Jackson, Vernacular Photography, Snapshots, halloween snapshots, snapshot photography, photos of people in halloween costumes, weird photography

Ben Alper has been collecting vernacular photographs for nearly a decade, trolling eBay auctions, thrift stores, and junk sales to decontextualize strangers’ forgotten photographic gems, occasionally posting them in phantasmic sequence on his ongoing blog The Archival Impulse. Unlike many of today’s most widely known collectors whose practices focus largely on curating, editing and archiving, Alper often threads his collecting into his work by manipulating the images to give them unexpected meaning. His most recent collection “Adrift” takes this into new territory with its alteration and publication of a fully intact cruise-ship vacation photo album that Ben discovered in a junk store in 2011.

PostedMarch 31, 2015

AuthorJon Feinstein

TagsBen Alper, Jon Feinstein, archival photography, snapshot photography, uncanny photography, vernacular photography, Found Photography, fine art photography

The Poetic Fictions in Vernacular Proof Photographs

Vernacular Patriotism: Photographs from the Collection of Robert E. Jackson

Joe Rudko's Photo Collages Imagine a Collective Vision

Halloween Vernacular: 13 Spooky Snapshots from the Collection of Robert E. Jackson

Ben Alper Turns a Cruise Ship Vacation into a Cryptic Narrative with his New Book ‘Adrift.’