The founder of Flickr, Catherine Fake, describes that the nature of digital photography has drawn professional and amateur photographers to the “immediate, rather fleeting display of one’s discovery to the small and mundane” subjects of life (Murray 2008: 151). On the Flickr website, photographs of everyday images have become a way for individuals to construct narratives about themselves and the world around them (Murray 2008: 151).
In our photo essay,
branching from the subject of clothing, we chose to explore the place of shoes
within our everyday lives. As well as being a practical clothing item – shoes
provide an insight into a person’s character, the choice of one’s footwear is
connected to requirements of a particular occasion. From joggers to casual sneakers, the collection of photos
brought together in our photo essay explore different varieties of shoes and
how they reflect different lifestyles, purposes etc. The choice of music, Beauty Full by artist,
SideCarTommy, translates “the sharp and the grainy, for the ‘perfect’ and the
imperfect” aspect of shoes – the rhythmic beat reflects the actions of
footsteps and brings these still images to life (Murray 2008: 161).
As Murray describes, traditional photographs concerned the need
to encapsulate a memory before loss and or death could disrupt that memory,
however, digital photography shifts the meaning of photographs. The ability to
observe the photo immediately emphasises the transitory essence of contemporary
photography. Sites such as Flickr engages us in the
fleeting, mundane and small things of everyday life such as, shoes.
By Craig Beatty and Karvya Kalutarage
By Craig Beatty and Karvya Kalutarage
References:
Digital Images, Photo Sharing and Our Shifting
Notions of Everyday Aesthetics,
Susan Murray, Journal of Visual Culture,
Published by Sage, 2008.
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