Snapshot Epiphanies

"Among the homely staples of 20th-century life that have been unceremoniously retired by the microchip revolution - the typewriter, the pressed-wax record, the card catalogue - the camera loaded with film has met a swift and stealthy end," wrote John Updike in The New Yorker in 2007. "We didn't often discard silver-based snapshots, but kept them, with their negatives, in boxes and drawers to await a definitive culling that rarely came."

That culling, along with a serious reassessment, has arrived with collectors like Robert E. Jackson in the vanguard. Since 1997, the Seattle-based Jackson, who trolls for his prized snapshot oddities in stores, flea markets and on eBay and Facebook, has amassed over 11,000 found and vernacular images, the bulk of which were taken in the 1940s, 50s and early 60s. He has branched out of late to include 19th-century cabinet cards.

Thirty-three double exposures, quickie portraits, color photographs and a smattering of press photos, all of female subjects, are currently on view in "Vernacular Vixens: Found Images from the Robert E. Jackson Collection." The show, not as racy as its title implies, is at the Robert Tat Gallery, a venue that champions the philosophy that's it's all about the image, not who made it.

Sometimes it's better not to know and be left to wonder why. Take the picture of a woman who has stretched a nylon stocking over her face, or a press print of a newly married couple that's rather standard fare except that the groom's head is blacked out, a silhouette surrounded by a white border. An unusual, ghostly photo of a fashion model that might have originated from a magazine shoot, an outstanding image here that rises to the level of "unintended art" object, is printed as a negative rather than a positive, its whites and blacks reversed as in an x-ray.

In other, less glam pictures, a girl has blown a bubble-gum bubble so large it's on the verge of exploding, and then there's the naked swimmer who dove head first into the sea, with legs and buns high to the sky and exposed to the elements. A number of erstwhile shutterbugs are fond of shooting into a mirror.

In a move that signaled snapshots were going legit, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC mounted "The Art of the American Snapshot 1888-1978," a 2007 exhibition and catalog that showcased a portion of Jackson's vast collection, and took a scholarly approach to the history of what had been considered a throwaway format. "It was amazing," Jackson recalled during a recent visit to Tat's gallery, where we talked at length about his consuming passion. Excerpts from that conversation follow.

Sura Wood: Why have you wanted to collect snapshots?

Robert E. Jackson: It was their availability, affordability, and the fact they dealt with imagery that was surprising to me. When I look at a fine art photographer, their body of work may be very beautiful, very striking visually, but I'm not going to be confronted, as one is in this show, with an older lady holding a tortoise.

Do you consider yourself a collector, a curator, a recontexualizer, a hunter?

First you see, then you collect, then you curate.

Can you define what seals the deal for you, the attributes a snapshot must have in order to make it into your collection?

I consider myself a formalist in terms of my eye. I'm looking for images that immediately captivate me, for the stuff that's not perfect, that's accidental, intimate, and I do like mistakes. I'm drawn to a picture that allows me to create another reality that wasn't the photographer's intent. I like the messiness of that. I like seeing the emulsion. The physicality of the process makes it something I can look at over and over again.

So perfection takes you out of the experience?

Yes. In this day and age, our eyes have been trained by cubism and futurism, surrealism and abstract expressionism to be comfortable with seeing something other than the Norman Rockwell/Andrew Wyeth kind of scene. We're used to something that's a little off, and when we see that in a snapshot, we gravitate toward it.

Do you ever feel that you're eavesdropping on private dramas?

You mean the voyeuristic aspect. In general, I'm looking at the formal qualities and how odd the photo is. The snapshot mostly deals in happy moments. Angst is something you don't generally see. Snapshots, for the holder, become a surrogate for the memory. For collectors, it's about the image that remains and what we read into it.

You're not interested in the back-story?

Absolutely not. I don't care when, where, how or who the person was. It's all about the image as I see it.

How has the advent of the selfie and proliferation of iPhone photos changed the context of the snapshot?

It's all about the "we" vs. the "me." The messiness of real life ended once we got into cell phone and digital photography. In earlier days, we took pictures of ourselves with our family and friends. That was about the "we." Now, with Instagram and digital, we curate ourselves. People want to show off and inspire envy in others. Look at my beautiful food. Look where I am and you're not. It's lifestyle, not life. The snapshots of today are pictures taken for strangers.

Are you continuing to acquire snapshots?

Every day. I can't stop.

Through Feb. 6