Da Kodak e Polaroid ao Google e ao Facebook: Fotografias de família e fotografias do eu

Abstract

 Since the early 20th Century, Kodak was a crucial force in shaping the practices of amateur photography, actively inspiring the practices of family and personal photography with its concept of the «Kodak moment». In the postwar period, its counterpart Polaroid emerged to sell the idea of photography as instant, key to parties, sex, and art. Yet, in the early 2000s, both companies went bankrupt, right at the moment when social media such as Facebook and Google aim to shape the practices of personal and family photography. In this article, the author will analyze the paralleling driving forces of both analogical instant and snapshot photography (with Kodak and Polaroid) and the photography social networks such as Facebook and Instagram, pointing out the turn from a memory function to a sharing one.