Vintage photographs of television screen images including (but not limited to) the funeral of a president, celebrities, natural disasters, the launch of a space shuttle, or a sumo wrestling match reveal a person's impulse to use the camera to stop time and 'grab' a souvenir image of the remarkable moment he or she is witnessing on TV. The screen snapshots can be read as an attempt by the photographer to engage with the subject being broadcast. In retrospect, it sometimes appears the line between domestic and documentary in these vernacular photos is blurred.  Lee Friedlander's Little Screen Series and Weegee's 1960s film The Idiot Box  are two non-vernacular examples of work focused on the visceral way the camera can interact with action images on the television screen.  According to photography writer, Bernard Yenelouis, "We are long past the days of the novelty of the television in the home, with enough historical distance to forget that once it was a remarkable new thing, which affected the tone of private life by introducing sounds and images far outside it. In the 1955 Douglas Sirk film All That Heaven Allows , a key scene in it is when Jane Wyman's grown children give her a TV as a surrogate for their own departures from the home - we see Jane Wyman reflected in the black mirror of the screen as the salesman intones its praises, "Comedy, Tragedy - life's cavalcade!" The ability to have an electronic device which brings in transmissions of the world into a private realm is now intensified with the home computer, distancing ourselves even further from the early days of black-&-white TV, and the consciousness of it bringing unparalleled variety into our lives. Looking at the snapshots of the sumo wrestlers on TV reminds me of the exoticism of the medium, in which it could function like a crystal ball, showing far corners of the world, different cultures, strangeness, as part of its everyday functions. Sumo wrestling in particular is an ancient sport, with a distinct iconography, and to see it framed in a television screen, and rendered static and tactile by the snapshot itself, a story within a story, as it were, reminds me that the snapshot, in general, can be a form of dreaming elsewhere. The fantasy, embodied in a small private print, has its own trajectory far from any broadcast." Visit Vintage Photographs for snapshots of television screen images.

A combination memory object, artifact of business history, advertising and photograph, vintage ID photo badges have become of interest to vernacular collectors. The photos in the badges complete with assigned numbers and rulers to identify the person's height have an aesthetic similar to passport, driver’s license and police mug shot photos. The enterprise of security including staff identification devices has changed dramatically since the 1950s when the badge above was made. Vintage pin back employee photo badges look to us now like novelty time capsules.  Visit Curiosities Gallery for more vintage photo badges

EXHIBITIONS: In the Darkroom: Photographic Processes before the Digital Age, National Gallery of Art, October 25, 2009–March 14, 2010 Exhibition catalogue

Victorian Photocollage, The Art Institute of Chicago, October 10, 2009–January 3, 2010 Exhibition catalogue

BLOGS:  Fans in a Flashbulb is The International Center of Photography Museum's blog about their permanent collection. The Barbara Levine Collection of Early Vernacular Photograph Albums was recently acquired by the Museum.

Dull Tool Dim Bulb  Jim Linderman's collection of vernacular photography, folk art, ephemera & curiosities. His new book is Take Me to the Water: Immersion Baptism in Vintage Music and Photography 1890-1950.

Thank you Bernard Yenelouis. His blog about modern, contemporary & vernacular photography is One Way Street

SITES:  Joachim Schmid  Be sure to read about his projects including The Photographic Garbage Survey Project  , and his photobooks including In Dialogue.

For more Fresh Links   Questions?- blevine@projectb.com