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In the Opium Den

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

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Among other things, photographs are deposits of social relations. To put it another way, they are social relations temporarily hardened into images—figured, captured, frozen. The most obvious of those relations, that between the photographer and the sitter, has been a regular subject of inquiry for art history. Acknowledging but leaving that kind of interest aside for the moment, we may explore other sorts of relations in and around a photograph and pursue a line of inquiry more in keeping with visual culture. Here's a quick example.

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Type
Theories and Methodologies
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2010