Bilden och fotografiet

Detta nummer av Budkavlen handlar om bilder och fotografier. Med de senaste årens allt mer påträngande bildflöde har det blivit angeläget för både etnologin och folkloristiken att ge akt på hur olika typer av bilder påverkar oss och hur vi också med hjälp av bilder får ett grepp om vår verklighet. En typ av bilder som de flesta nuförtiden är med om att skapa är fotografier, isynnerhet som den nutida tekniken gör det möjligt att snabbt, i realtid, skapa en digital repertoar som speglar olika sidor av vårt eget liv. Fotografiet har naturligtvis länge haft en särställning inom speciellt etnologin, som ett dokumentationsinstrument över aktuella eller i varje fall tillgängliga fenomen i de samfund vi undersökt. Det har sedermera kunnat betraktas som särpräglad vittnesbörd om dessa fenomen. Dokumentationsaspekten är dock bara en aspekt av fotografiet, visserligen basen och i begynnelsen grundidén till de etnologiska arkiv som grundats som depåer över insamlat fältmaterial och senare även annat fotografiskt material som donerats till arkiven. Med den ökade och ökande kunskapen om det oerhört mångbottnade i bildframställning och -reception överlag och isynnerhet vad gäller fotografier är det angeläget att peka på bildernas användning och tolkning i vardagen och inom forsknings- och arkivvärlden.


Budkavlen 2007
This issue of B udkav len talks about images and photography. Due to the increasingly present flow of images, it has become important for both ethnology and folklore researchers to not only consider what impact different types of images have on us, but also consider how we can come to terms with our reality with the help of images. A certain type of images that most of us create are photographs, especially since the modem day technology permits us to quickly and in real time create a digital repertoire that mirrors different sides of ourselves and our lives. The photograph as such has naturally had a special place particularly within ethnology for a long time since it provides a tool for documenting contemporary, or at least available, phenomena in the societies investigated. This has later on been considered as a distinctive testimony of these phenomena. The documentation aspect is however only one aspect of the image as such, but nonetheless the foundation and originally the founding idea for the ethnological archives, which were founded as a depot for collected material as well as for other types of photographic material donated to the archives. Considering photographs, it is important to point out the usage and the interpretation of the images in everyday life as well as within the field of research and archives due to the increased, and increasing, general knowledge of the multiple layers of image production and image reception.
The documentation aspect, which we also find in private photography, points out the image as a function of representation, documentation, evidence and proof of a series of events. The image can in other words function as a form of testimony of the truth. In this case, the more typical functions of the image, of which the interpretational aspect is the dominant one, are overlooked. Images are above all expressions of certain notions and intentions, and they are or strive to be compressed compilations. They carry a message they refer to, which need not lay in das Ding an sich, but which to a much higher extent refers to something the image in itself is not telling. In this issue of Budkavlen we can on many occasions read that the image itself is also an opening to stories and even to stories with mythical elements. The meanings put into the images when they are produced need not be the same as those who appear when the images are interpreted. Since the image also contains a manipulation aspect, it is important to consider which direction the observer is enticed to take and which interpretation he or she is prone to agree with. Images often carry features of the ideal. In addition to the esthetical components we find all other associations, mostly positive ones, which the images strive to create. Therefore, it can not be considered particularly strange that certain art forms, especially those within the photographic documentation art form, strive to create the opposite; the ugly and the unpleasant is contrasted with the trend that strives to embellish reality.
The meaning of the images can be uncovered, their power can be demonstrated and their function as attachments in our lives can be traced when you are aware of the fact that they mostly strive to depict the ideal. The image as a representation of something then dominates, and when researching how these representations are constructed, many other fields of research besides ethnology and folklore studies contribute to the image analysis. Ethnology and folklore studies hold a certain advantage though. Our sciences constantly strive to keep both the present and the past in sight, and we also want to take a bea-ring of future trends. Therefore, the time aspect is an important part of the traditional scientific image analysis. It is striking how this insight reappears in all the articles published here, both when it comes to our older archive collections and our contemporary analyses.
The booklet's first article finds Sven-Erik Klinkmann researching skin cream advertisements in which he finds parallels to the feminine ideal of the renaissance, which suggest interpretations for the signification of the image's stress on motionlessness, tranquility and clean space. With his image material, Klinkmann shows that small details in the images open up sumptuous interpretations bringing us into the mythical elements of our culture.
Sophie Nyblom's article deals with the private art of photography and the creation of photo albums. This area is important in our modem day times when completely new forms of image depots have emerged. The concrete albums made by hand out of concrete materials give the creator an opportunity to tell their life story to themselves and to others. Nyblom points out that the album as a structured life story to return to opens up new perspectives on their usage, in particular for its creator. Nyblom has interviewed ten people about their relations to their albums.
We come into the documentalists' line of work in Katja Hellman's article about the Ethnological Image Archives at Abo Akademi University. She shows that the production of images has over time been directed by different research interests and by how different users see different meanings in the pictures. At the same time, she advocates a more active usage of the older images that are kept as treasures of a time that is often long gone. In total, we can count to 62 000 images.
Marika Rosenstrom presents similar points· of view in her article, which talks 8 about corresponding collections of images at Folkkulturarkivet 1 in Helsinki which holds an incredible 270 000 images. Her focus lies on individual photographers, countryside photographers as well as amateur photographers, whose collections have been donated to Folkkultursarkivet, and on the early ethnologist photographers with the likes of Gabriel Nikander, Curt Segerstrale and Walter W. Forsblom. She also stresses the importance of the provenance and care of the photographs.
Erik Hagglund from Rokio in Vora was an incredibly productive countryside and studio photographer from 1910 to 1962. His rich collection of photographs ended up at Folkkultursarkivet thanks to a rescue operation performed by Bo Lonnqvist and I var Nordlund. The dutiful work of identifying and caring for the collections started in Helsinki, but the collections were brought back to Ostrobothnia 2 in 1998 and became a collection in the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland and their Archives of Traditions in Vasa. Meta Sahlstrom's article describes the life and activities of a photographer, the motives of his images and the photographer's circle of customers. She too stresses the importance of the photographs' provenance, something that has been strived to maintain on behalf of the Vora collections during the course of many years by organizing exhibitions to help identify the origin of the images.
But everything is not photographs. The last article in Budkavlen talks about portraits of ships and captains. This brings a special kind of marine painting into focus. Thomas Wilman suggests that the function of the portraits of ships was to secure the status of the proprietor of the ship, and therefore the ship itself and all its details are the most important things in these pain-tings. Similarly to many portraits of humans, information concerning the name of the owner or person in command, as well as the name of the domicile, was frequently added to the portraits of captains. Once again we come to the conclusion that the reproduction is the most essential here; a lifelike depiction that makes the paintings Foljande ars temanummer ar: become more similar to one another in the eyes of the non-initiated the more you look at them. The paintings of the ships speak their own language only understood by the initiated, and the ethnologist's task is here to lead the observer onto the right path.
This issue of Budkavlen begins with Blanka Henriksson/s lectio praecursoria.