Faded images. Unveiling amateur photography of the turn of the century based on the materiality of Josefina Oliver's work

Abstract

The development of portable cameras, easy to use and faster than their predecessors, allowed, at the end of the 19th century, the growth of a very important group for the history of photography: the amateur photographers. This article proposes to analyze the practice of amateurism in Argentina from the production of photographer Josefina Oliver (1875-1956), composed of photographs taken and copied by herself that she attached to her personal diaries, taken between 1892 and 1956. It will be from the analysis of the materiality of these photographs that we will ask ourselves if it is possible to recognize signs of the amateur practice and, from them, to approach the context of production and circulation of knowledge of the amateur photographic environment during the change of century in Argentina. Although the situations registered in the photographs can help us to know their environment and social context, it will be the materiality of these photographs, in which we include the interventions made on them and the deterioration they present at this moment, that will allow us to reveal their working methods and, therefore, the knowledge and access that Oliver had to the photographic environment of the time.