“Every time a picture was taken it was mandatory to smile”: analog photography and the development of childhood subjectivity

Abstract

This article aims to offer some readings on the relationship between photography and the formation of subjectivities in children. Specifically, it addresses the time frame between the 1980s and 1990s, with the popularized use of analog photography. In view of the possibility of investigating adults’ childhood memories through photographs, an empirical exploration of the photographic practices of this period is carried out in order to identify in them certain elements that can be considered as forming a child’s subjectivity. As a framework for analysis, some milestones on the transformation of certain definitions of childhood in modern Western society are presented, a perspective on the concept of subjectivity is developed, and it is suggested that children of the period in question may be moving between a “state” subjectivity and a “media” one. Some arguments are also developed on how photography and, in general, media culture are producers of subjectivities. As conclusions, certain adult operations in the photographic act that may be constitutive of a child subjectivity are suggested. For example, certain “recycling” of visual models from previous centuries, the use of dress codes, the articulation with the school visuality, the organization of the photographic space that entails instructions on children’s bodies and expressions, the adult emotional projection with children’s expressions and certain codes that institute the feminine gender in girls. It is also intended to contribute to the reflection on the subjectivities of childhood that are being shaped in the current production and circulation of photographs of children in social networks.