Luc Sante talking about Folk Photography

This has been sitting in my 'to do' tray for such a long time and I'm only just getting to it now. I remember reading last year in Aperture about this book. The postcard phenomenon is an interesting parallel to the internet and how that also further liberated photography as a creative medium. Whether this ultimately is a good or bad thing would be an interesting debate.

In this clip, writer and critic Luc Sante presents his latest book, Folk Photography: The American Real-Photo Postcard, 1905–1930 ... Sante explains the development of real-photo postcards in the first half of the 20th century in small American towns. Practiced by both amateur and professional photographers, the craze around these photo postcards was enhanced by the dissemination of pocket cameras. This non-academic art often dismissed by the history of photography inspired a generation of photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. A crucial mode of communications in isolate towns then, Sante explains how the meaning of these postcards has changed today, viewed as an archive of rural life at that time.

Luc Sante: Parsons Lecture Series 1/2 from Aperture Foundation on Vimeo.