Photo album life and death

Photo Memory: an Album in the Epoch of Photography is a monograph from Aperture, the non-profit agency established in 1952 for showcasing photographic excellence, that since 1960 has been publishing pioneering and eclectic photo albums.

The author Verna Posever Curtis, a curator of photography in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, reviews the history of photo albums. From the chronicle of an expedition to Alaska to an anonymous family album, the author considers the album’s stylistic features and analyzes their functions – to memorialize, document, cultivate, teach, promote, and share experiences.

The book contains works of famous photographers and filmmakers like Jim Goldberg, Dorothea Lange, Duane Michals, Leni Riefenstahl and Paolo Ventura. In this era of dematerialization the topic becomes especially urgent: will paper photo albums survive as a genre? Will they become an anachronism against the background of hard disks and internet downloads? Ms. Curtis also offers advice about how to preserve and restore photo albums.