The short history of photography has changed dramatically
since it’s beginning. From the
technology to the way we view images, shapes today’s society. One recent development to change how we take
and view photographs is Instagram.
The Chief Official White House Photographer, Pete Souza, is
a fairly recent addition to the slew of people that post on Instragram. He first posted on July 24th,
2013. With this new access outlet, the photographs
of the White House now reach an even wider audience than ever before. Images of President Obama are readily
available on the web for people to view, like, and comment. This will be the first Presidency documented
on Instagram.
The images themselves are great and historical, but the
content really is not that much different than past images of the
presidency. If we start to compare the
subject of the photographs of Pete Souza’s Instagram and the photographs of a
presidency from the past, such as John F. Kennedy, we see that they are not
that different. The content of the
photos themselves are of the White House, and other things documenting the
presidency.
 |
| Pete Souza. POTUS and Dan Pfeiffer on the White House colonnade. http://instagram.com/p/juKer3NNKx/ |
 |
| ST-423-1-62. President John F. Kennedy with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston |
Digital photography has made access more instant to a
variety of photographs, including photographs of the President. The White House has been a member of Flickr
since 2009. However, after going through
their Flickr page, the photographs have a statement that “this official White
House photograph is being made available only for publication by news
organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the
photograph” (Flickr). Their Flickr
account appears to have the purpose to distributing photographs easily for
publication in the news. While
individuals can still look at the photostream, I do not believe that is the
intended audience. An individual can
only favorite a photo, they cannot comment or tag an image. Instagram on the other hand, appears to be
for the people. Individuals can like an
image and comment on it.
What makes this collection a change is the mode of
distribution. Individuals can follow
Pete Souza on Instagram or you can just visit the page to view the photographs
posted. The instant sharing of
photographs on Instagram has made photography more accessible. Instagram is
provides a way for people to engage with photographs of Obama’s presidency.
The ability to comment is an
interesting development for this type of collection on Instagram. In the description it states, “comments
posted on White House pages may be archived. Learn more at wh.gov/privacy”
(Pete Souza Instagram). Comments on the
photographs generally fall into three categories, Obama is great, Obama is not
great, and this picture is pretty. I
think this aspect will be interesting for archivists to deal with. What comments will we archive? Do we archive
everything? Is this something we need to
start thinking about? I have worked on
cataloging White House Photographs at JFK Library and the idea of cataloging images
from Instagram is an intriguing and daunting one for me. It presents new challenges, but also provides
documented insights by the intended audience. I think this has the potential
for added value for researchers in the future.
Sources
Flickr: The White
House’s Photostream. (n.d.). Retrieved April 2, 2014, from
https://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/
petesouza on Instagram.
(n.d.). Retrieved April 2, 2014, from
http://instagram.com/PeteSouza#
No comments:
Post a Comment