Difficult Images: A Family’s Hidden Photographs of Grief and Mourning

Fahd, C

Difficult Images: A Family’s Hidden Photographs of Grief and Mourning

Fahd, C

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Publisher:: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Photography and Culture, 2020, 13, (1), pp. 3-27
Issue Date:: 2020-04-25

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Fahd, C https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3404-1535
dc.date.accessioned	2020-05-15T00:28:03Z
dc.date.available	2020-05-15T00:28:03Z
dc.date.issued	2020-04-25
dc.identifier.citation	Photography and Culture, 2020, 13, (1), pp. 3-27
dc.identifier.issn	1751-4517
dc.identifier.issn	1751-4525
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/140744
dc.description.abstract	© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Family albums are filled with photographs celebrating the happy times. These represent the high points in life, such as birthdays, holidays, and weddings as well as ordinary moments of domestic life. But what of more difficult images? Rarely included in the family album are photographs of funerals, deaths, and expressions of grief. Consequently, the focus of this article is a private collection of difficult photographs, hidden from view and left out of the family archive; the images unmistakably depict a family deep in mourning. Taken in 1975 at a funeral and burial, the family is pictured grieving their loss in an unusually public way. These images offer a rare opportunity to examine the representation of intimate and difficult emotions in private photographs, while asking questions about the function of the family archive. Using Jacques Derrida’s reflections on death, mourning, and the archive, as well as Roland Barthes’ observations in Camera Lucida, I have argued for difficult images to be included and shared in the family album. Here I maintain that difficult images depicting difficult emotions offer an opportunity to enhance photography’s storytelling capacity in the inter-generational experience of family. This examination is further contextualized alongside photography’s longstanding connection to death.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
dc.relation.ispartof	Photography and Culture
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1080/17514517.2019.1571732
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess
dc.subject	1901 Art Theory and Criticism, 1905 Visual Arts and Crafts
dc.title	Difficult Images: A Family’s Hidden Photographs of Grief and Mourning
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	13
utslib.for	1901 Art Theory and Criticism
utslib.for	1905 Visual Arts and Crafts
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building/School of Design
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access	*
pubs.consider-herdc	false
dc.date.updated	2020-05-15T00:27:57Z
pubs.issue	1
pubs.publication-status	Published
pubs.volume	13
utslib.start-page	3
utslib.citation.issue	1

Abstract:

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Family albums are filled with photographs celebrating the happy times. These represent the high points in life, such as birthdays, holidays, and weddings as well as ordinary moments of domestic life. But what of more difficult images? Rarely included in the family album are photographs of funerals, deaths, and expressions of grief. Consequently, the focus of this article is a private collection of difficult photographs, hidden from view and left out of the family archive; the images unmistakably depict a family deep in mourning. Taken in 1975 at a funeral and burial, the family is pictured grieving their loss in an unusually public way. These images offer a rare opportunity to examine the representation of intimate and difficult emotions in private photographs, while asking questions about the function of the family archive. Using Jacques Derrida’s reflections on death, mourning, and the archive, as well as Roland Barthes’ observations in Camera Lucida, I have argued for difficult images to be included and shared in the family album. Here I maintain that difficult images depicting difficult emotions offer an opportunity to enhance photography’s storytelling capacity in the inter-generational experience of family. This examination is further contextualized alongside photography’s longstanding connection to death.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/140744