Laugh Molly Laugh
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- 7.9 × 5.8 cm (image, a); 8.3 × 6.3 cm (paper, a); verso: 5.7 × 10 cm (image, b), 6.3 × 10.7 cm (paper, b); 11.3 × 8.4 cm (mount)
- Genre
- photograph
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
photographic techniquesphotographygelatin silver printphotographic processesblack-and-white photographyphotographphotographic paper
About
After George Eastman introduced the handheld Kodak #1 camera in 1888, amateurs made millions of snapshots depicting friends and family, travels, and festive occasions such as weddings. Even while solidifying such thoroughly conventional behaviors, amateur photography developed a new pictorial language that privileged immediacy, spontaneity, and accident. Career photographers and art historians—but also antiques vendors and flea-market shoppers—have long recognized the value of the “snapshot aesthetic.” The rise of social media and smartphones in recent years has effectively ended the era of the snapshot as both a printed photograph and an image for a private audience.
