ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author purchased hundreds of analogue family photographs on eBay, collected sellers’ statements and created two unique albums from these materials, one called Question for Seller and the other Gay Interest Beefcake. Both physical artefacts were exhibited, sold on eBay on the last day of their respective shows and collected as artworks. As ‘vernacular’ photographs, the job lot shares the popular, visual language of mass photography of yesteryear and the label ‘vintage’ photographs implies another value: lasting interest in the past. The chapter concludes with a watch list for future custodians of vernacular ‘family’ photographs. As a site selling millions of ‘vintage’ photographs, eBay is full of shattered fragments. Contemporary technologies and changes to the medium of photography therefore raise new critical questions in relation to a physical album of vernacular photographs made, and exhibited, in 2006.
