Title: Not One but Many: Photographic Trajectories and the Making of History
Abstract: This article examines the networks that form an archive using variations on a single photograph from the Thomas Rodger studio of St Andrews. Using the concept of a ‘thick thing’, the article charts the trajectories of photographs of Bronze Age funerary urns as they left Rodger’s studio, were collected in albums and used in lectures, and returned to the University of St Andrews Special Collections. Taking just one of Rodger’s photographic assignments as a prism allows us to think about the circulation of many of his photographs both during his lifetime and after, as both the creation of ‘thick things’ and as ‘material performances’ that have since gained the title ‘Early Scottish Photography’ in the St Andrews Special Collections. From a humble object photograph and its variations, the article argues for the agency of the photographs and their studio origins in forming the special collections’ photographic collection, and making, in a very literal sense, the stuff from which we write history.
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-10-02
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 1
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot