Remembrance of things past: The cultural context and the rise and fall in the popularity of photographer David Hamilton

Perry Hinton

doi:10.1080/23311983.2016.1164930

Abstract

AbstractFor 10 years, from the late 1960s, the France-based British photographer David Hamilton gained widespread public acclaim. His work appeared ubiquitous in popular culture, from photo shoots for Vogue to the publicity photography for the Nina Ricci perfume L’Air du Temps. His books, featuring soft focus imagery of young women in idyllic summer settings devoid of the symbols of modernity, became bestsellers in many countries, bought in their hundreds of thousands, and captured a romantic and escapist aesthetic of the time that influenced cultural products from advertising to fashion. This article examines his work and its public reception to explain both its initial phenomenal popularity and subsequent disregard. It is argued here that his photography provides insight into the cultural Zeitgeist of that early period and, by charting its reception, changing sociocultural sensibilities can be observed.

Highlights

Pierre Bourdieu argues in Towards a Sociology of Photography (1991, p. 31) that understanding a photograph “means recovering the meanings which it proclaims, that is, to a certain extent, the explicit intentions of the photographer, it means deciphering the surplus of meaning which ABOUT THE AUTHORSince receiving his doctorate from the University of Oxford, Perry R
This paper examines the work of British photographer David Hamilton, and argues that his photographs symbolized a specific age, representing the romanticism of the early 1970s
This analysis of the work of photographer David Hamilton has shown that his images, and their popularity, can be used to examine both the meanings proclaimed by him and the meanings betrayed by them within their cultural context (Bourdieu, 1991)

Summary

Introduction

Pierre Bourdieu argues in Towards a Sociology of Photography (1991, p. 31) that understanding a photograph “means not only recovering the meanings which it proclaims, that is, to a certain extent, the explicit intentions of the photographer, it also means deciphering the surplus of meaning which

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

Findings

Conclusion