The Visual Landscape of the
Vietnam Veteran:
Snapshot, or Home Mode, Photography
Snapshot, or Home Mode photography (as those involved in the field refer to the genre), is not a widely studied form of photography. The study of the combat snapshot is even more obscure. The focus of most war photography has centered on journalistic photography, professional and military, in analyzing images of war. Home Mode is usually used in reference to family photography, such as the photos most of us have taken and preserved in albums, and tourist/travel photography. This genre of photography is an important and valid method of recording history, albeit on an individual level, that many people can relate to. Shared experiences, such as a war, provide a basis for mass interpretation of a method of visual communication. Richard Chalfen, in his seminal study of the Home Mode genre, "Snapshot Versions of Life", states, "Knowledge of social and cultural contexts provides a basis for interpreting how Home Mode imagery 'means' a world, constructs a reality for part-time participation, and functions as part of a symbolic environment". Chalfen also strongly believes that photographic images, whether professional or amateur, "...must be understood as cultural artifacts surrounded by social and cultural contexts". The Vietnam war is the social and cultural context in which this study of Home Mode photography finds itself immersed.
Another figure in the field of Home Mode is Christopher Musello. In his article titled, "Studying the Home Mode: An Exploration of Family Photography and Visual Communication", Musello provides a model for applying home mode analysis to the ethnographic study of the Home Mode genre. Musello shows the importance of fieldwork and narrative in the examination of Home Mode and its classification as a form of documentary and communication. The framework used in his study is very helpful and definitely applicable to the ethnographic study of the Vietnam veteran's snapshot collection and is important in aiding in the categorization of findings. Musello's framework categories consist of planning, behind camera shooting, on camera shooting, processing, editing and exhibition. For purposes of my study, I will add storage to this list, as methods of image storage add an important component to each vet's story.
Chalfen, Richard. Snapshot Versions of Life
(Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press, 1987).
Musello, Christopher. "Studying the Home Mode: An Exploration of Family
Photography and Visual Communication," Studies in Visual Communication
6:1 (Spring 1980): 23-42.
