About this artwork
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.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Unknown Maker
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Title
- On the Rocks, Hampton Beach
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Place
- Hampton Falls (Place depicted)
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Date
- Made 1919
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Medium
- Gelatin silver prints
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Dimensions
- Top image: 5.6 × 9.9 cm (2 1/4 × 3 15/16 in.); Top paper: 6.3 × 9.9 cm (2 1/2 × 3 15/16 in.); Bottom image: 5.7 × 9.9 cm (2 1/4 × 3 15/16 in.); Bottom paper: 6.2 × 9.9 cm (2 1/2 × 3 15/16 in.); Mount: 14 × 10.2 cm (5 9/16 × 4 1/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Peter J. Cohen
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Reference Number
- 2013.158.250
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
