ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the textual traces left behind by the class of photographer who is passionate about the medium, deeply knowledgeable about its mechanics and methods, but not living from its products. This photographer, as Pierre Bourdieu neatly puts it in his famous study of camera club devotees, sets out to 'free' photography from its 'family function', taking as her or his subject matter anything but the rituals of domestic life. The chapter proposes instead to use the term 'aspirational amateur', a coinage that points to two often overlooked aspects of this photographer: the passionate amateur's ethic of self-improvement, and more generally, her or his desire. Photography Monthly began publishing in 2001, and the February 2012 issue was its 131st. Its beginnings coincide more or less with the introduction of consumer digital cameras onto the market, and its emphasis is almost exclusively on digital rather than film photography.
