Regulating Photographic Meanings by Jessica Evans

In her introduction to the series of essays in Visual Culture: the reader, Evans discusses among other things the democratization of photography enabled by the accessibility of the medium. We may say that this accessibility arises on two counts:

• Price - virtually anyone at least in Western societies can afford access to a camera, whether it be bespoke, or as a function within a tablet or smartphone;
• Ease of use - technology has worked successively to 'dumb down' the technicality of the equipment. There are ever more 'auto' functions 

Evans continues that the democratisation is permitted by 'the division of labour' between the operation of the camera and the subsequent processing of the image. That may have been true with film, but is certainly not so with digital images. Digitisation has further simplified ('dumbed down') photography in two ways:

• We can take many images of the same thing and 'choose the best'. An image costs nothing to take marginally. Never before has visual culture had the means to produce work that costs nothing in production or time;
• As with the operation of the camera, digital processes are being democratised. Even simple smartphones have an 'optimisation' function, which typically will add some selective saturation, alter exposure, and sharpen the image. 

Evans continues by discussing Slater and others regarding the distinction between 'snapshot' and 'serious amateur' photographers. The democratisation is not complete because of the distinction between those who can 'take' and those who 'make'. Slater (1977) noted that the very means of democratisation also 'made it impotent'. The most down to earth photography (holiday snaps) is evidence of  'the most stultified and limited repertoire of compositions'.

There is therefore a paradox that the very process of democratisation has elicited a new elite: the keen enthusiast, perhaps defined by owning a SLR camera costing over £750 (not so long ago, one might say "SLR" but technology has moved so fast that good quality SLRs are now available to the mass market at low cost and presupposing limited  technological knowhow). Slater foresaw that restriction to what we might term a higher plane of photography is now more about how to programme and use menus on an item of electronic equipment than knowledge about specific media.

Evans sees a gender dimension in the distinction between the snapshot photographer and the serious amateur. She characterises the latter as predominantly male aged 25-44, process their own films, join photography clubs, and subscribe to magazines that 'fetishise equipment' and impart rules that define a good photograph, whether that be a landscape or a portrait, for example. This is Bourdieu's attempted ennoblement of the art. 

Snapshot photographers are predominantly female and from a wider socioeconomic range than serious amateurs. The camera substitutes for a lack of skill and confidence of the user. 

Evans can be criticised on two counts here;

• She adduces no evidence for her assertions;
• Whatever the correctness of her statements in 1990s, events (technology) have taken over. In my experience, serious amateur photography is now very evenly balanced gender wise. 

Slater points out that photography is unlike other visual media insofar as its monopolisation has not been caused by 'restricting access to the media technology'. I am not sure this is entirely true; quality indoor posed portrait photography requires significant investment in space and equipment, for example. Furthermore, since he wrote, access to media of moving images, video cameras and smartphone apps for example have democratised the media of moving images with sound, else YouTube could never have happened.  

Reference:

Slater (1985) Marketing Mass Photography in Davis and Walton (eds.) Language, Image, Media. Blackwell, Oxford