More Than a Snapshot - A Visual History of Photo Wallets
Annebella Pollen
Four Corners Books, ISBN 9781909829220,
Hb, 112 pgs, 16 x 22cm
Acqn. 33347
In Stock
£12.00
Hb, 112 pgs, 16 x 22cm
Acqn. 33347
In Stock
£12.00
For over 100 years, when you’d often have to wait a week to see your
photos, film processors used photo wallets - cheery illustrated envelopes -
to return your pictures to you. They showed what subjects were considered
suitable for a snapshot: bright-eyed children, laughing couples, adorable
pets and perfect landscapes; they also reinforced prohibitions by what they
omitted.
Drawing from the author’s personal collection of photo wallets from the
1900s to the 1990s, Annebella Pollen’s book charts a century of popular
photography in Britain: the birth of a new mass leisure pastime mainly
marketed towards women, the growth of camera ownership after the
Second World War, and behind it all, the working conditions of the people
processing the films. It commemorates a time when you never knew if you
had captured a treasured memory or your finger in front of the lens.