Photography and the world of bullfighting: Visual histories of success

Abstract

The first bullfighting photograph given to me was a bad reproduction of a studio portrait of a bullfighter named Machaquito, dated c.1910 (figure 1). In my second week of fieldwork, the image, one of a handful kept under the bar of a bullfighting club in Córdoba (southern Spain), appeared little more than an unwanted spare. As I became increasingly familiar with the visual dimension of the ‘bullfighting world’ I began to appreciate the significance of the production, publication, display, distribution, exchange and ownership of photography. These activities are inextricably linked with the representation of the social relationships that make up the bullfighting world. The history of bullfighting photography is part of the history of bullfighting. The visual dimension of bullfighting has been central to the production of both collective and individual bullfight memories.1 Photography is integral to the realist documentation and symbolic imagery of bullfighting.2 Thus it is possible to see this essay as an ethnographic case study in social uses of photography.