Snapshot nation

Last update: October 21, 2007 - 8:05 PM

Say Cheese! An exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington is full of images that could have come straight out of the family photo album -- birthday parties, farm life, road trips and soldiers at work (and play) during World War II. Curators wanted to chronicle the development of amateur photography from the invention of the Kodak camera in 1888 through changes in technology, styles and subjects of these homemade pictures over 90 years. They used the vast collection assembled by Robert Jackson over the past decade from flea markets, art fairs and sales on eBay.

"I really hope people will appreciate the kind of creativity and freedom that you see in the snapshot from just everyday people, " said Diane Waggoner, assistant curator of photographs at the gallery.

By the late 1970s, people were taking nearly 9 billion snapshots a year following the invention of the Polaroid.

The show runs through the end of the year and then travels to the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, from Feb. 16 through April 27, 2008.

"It is sort of a great recognition of the snapshot itself," Jackson said.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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