Abstract

Photographic representations of labour have always been informed by socially defined commonplaces as much as by historically specific concepts of photographic veracity and objectivity. This text seeks to provide an, albeit schematic, archaeology of the ideologically charged typologies and taxonomies that defined representations of working people in the photographic studio and at the workplace in distinct historical moments in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries aiming to provide a point of reflection for the changing nature of labour and its visualisation in today's global economies.