ctually enhanced the image. The imperfections conveyed the picture’s authenticity. This is not a picture taken by an outsider documentary photographer to depict the dominance of white culture on an African American child. It was probably taken by an amateur photographer who was an intimate of the child and unaware of the racial connotation we attribute to the portrait. The blemishes told me that the image had been touched by people who were close to the child and to their ancestors. This was a real document of life not a document created by an elite visitor to depict someone else’s life.
Most advanced collectors turn up their noses at cards with thumbtack holes. I own a number of cards with those holes. My assumption is that tacks were used by the original owner to display the card on his or her personal space. The hole provides tangible evidence that the image was important and meaningful enough to have it adorn the owner’s walls.
Signs of use and printing flaws can increase the aesthetics of the photo card, much like patina and wear enhance the beauty of folk art and other antiques. Pristine lily-white backs and unflawed prints are the requirements for a photograph hanging in art gallery. But those same qualities in a photo postcard detract from their value as folk documentary and historical artifact. Walker Evans traveled to rural areas and took strikingly poignant photos of people and places he encountered. If he took the picture of the African American child we would expect the condition of the print to be clean and flawless. He was a professional photographer with ties to the art photography world. We should not apply those criteria to photograph taken by a local photographer for local use. Doing that distorts its meaning.