Hyper-meta-shit

These are at least extreme enough to avoid the tiredest kind of quotation or allusion. They suggest a number of related points. 1. Yes, they are or were snapshots, though all explore the boundaries of the genre. The first is a Photomatic, a self-taken booth photo that sneaks by as a snapshot for reasons I’ve discussed. It’s not clear to me if the booth was empty or the film was improperly exposed. The second is a snapshot in the sense that it is a small one-of-a-kind non-professional photo (and therefore not pornography, again for reasons I’ve discussed), but the paper is a bit heavy and I don’t think the processing was done in a commercial lab. The third was originally a Polaroid. Polaroids are snapshots, though they are atypical enough that I will devote a separate section to them later. But, with no image area, this object isn’t even very much of a Polaroid now. 2. I said snapshots are objects. These are objecty, perhaps to a fault. The last example isn’t even a photo. The other two are debatable. 3. If these begin to suggest one zone of snapshot taste, and I believe they do, snapshot taste can be very individual indeed. 4. Snapshot taste can move emphatically into the realm of “art,” if only because it doesn’t always seem to be a strictly photographic taste.

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