The everyday practice of photography by millions of amateur photographers - the family snapshots, the holiday prints, the wedding portraits - may seem to be a spontaneous and highly personal activity. But Bourdieu and his associates aim to show that few cultural activities are more structured and systematic than the social uses of this ordinary art. This analysis of the practice of photography brings out the logic implicit in this cultural field. The norms which define the occasions and the object of photography serve to display the socially differentiated functions of, and attitudes towards, the photographic image and act. For some social groups, photography is primarily a means of preserving the present and reproducing the euphoric moments of collective celebration, whereas for other groups it is the occasion of an aesthetic judgement, in which photos are endowed with the dignity of works of art.
- ISBN10 0745605230
- ISBN13 9780745605234
- Publish Date 21 June 1990 (first published 1 January 1990)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 14 November 1996
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Polity Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 250
- Language English