ABSTRACT
Consider the individual images in Figure 12.1. Each is an example of amateur commercial still life photography (ACSL) on eBay and indicative of what I suggest is an emergent genre of photography (to the extent that term still applies in the age of pixels). ACSL photographs are seller-submitted images taken by amateur photographers of items listed for auction. Millions of eBay sellers have developed their own practice of photo-imaging (a term that encompasses analog and digital means of production) that is a major component of the site’s visual economy. The status of these photographs as positivist recordings of the items for sale does not exhaust or contain the images. Rather, a quality of latent semiotic unruliness offers something in excess of their evidentiary status, and I am interested in theorizing this excess. Examples of amateur commercial still life photography https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203958988/abff60b5-5b3d-4bcf-b05e-daf1745d8464/content/fig12_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
