ABSTRACT
The above lines are spoken by Seymour Parrish, the narrator and central character of the 2002 film One Hour Photo. Parrish works in the photographic department of a large out of town store, processing and printing customers’ films. As his narration suggests, Parrish is well aware of the highly selective version of family life provided by the snapshots he sees all day. Nevertheless he disavows what he knows, becoming obsessed with the photographs he develops of a family that he convinces himself is perfect: imagining himself within their images as an escape from his own less than ideal family background. More generally, One Hour Photo serves as a commentary on the constructed character of snapshots and the desire to believe in the content of what is by far the most popular form of photography. Snapshots are the photographs most people make and appear in most of the time.They are sophisticated images and the majority of us receive an education in how to pose for and take snapshots from the moment we are born. It is only because this detailed knowledge becomes second nature at an early age that we forget our indoctrination into the culture of snapshot photography, making snaps seem simple and even ‘naïve’.They are neither.
