# Diaristic snapshot photography

> Colour snapshots of the photographer's own life: friends and lovers in bed, in the bath, dressing up, getting high, fighting, dancing and grieving, shot up close at night with a flash on a small 35 mm camera. Faces are flat and shiny in the flash, backgrounds fall to black, colours are saturated and warm, framing is quick and often crooked. The pictures matter because the photographer belongs to the scene; shown as slideshows, books and walls of prints, they read as a diary.

- Period: 1979–present
- Where it began: New York's Lower East Side
- Kind: Street & snapshot
- Also called: Snapshot aesthetic, Confessional photography, Intimate documentary, Diary photography
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/diaristic-snapshot/

## How the look is made

- Photograph only the people you live with, love and go out with, and keep doing it for years.
- Get close: within arm's reach, in the bedroom, the bathroom, the club.
- Use the flash on the camera at night and accept hard light, shine and black backgrounds.
- Shoot fast and keep the crooked frame, the blur and the grain; never retouch.
- Let subjects see their pictures and veto what is shown; build the work as a sequence, not single trophies.

## How it is lit

- Direct on-camera flash at night in flats, bars, clubs and taxis, the background falling to black.
- Available tungsten, lamp and window light in bedrooms and bathrooms, pushed to its limit.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: a flash on the camera, from the camera, hard.

## Camera settings

35–50 mm · f/2.8–f/8 · 1/125–1/30 s · ISO 200–800 (on full-frame), inferred. 

## Directing people

Hardly posed: friends and lovers lie in bed, sprawl on sofas, floors and back seats, hold and kiss each other, or look straight back at the photographer they trust, unsmiling or caught mid-feeling; some sleep, cry or turn away. At parties they play up to the camera, and some pictures are set up with friends in chosen clothes and places.

## Styling

Nobody is styled by the photographer: people wear their own clothes, club and drag outfits, wigs and party make-up, in their own unmade beds, bathrooms, bars and taxis with the mess left in; a few daylight pictures put friends in chosen clothes in a chosen place.

## Before you shoot it

These are real, often vulnerable people photographed by someone they trusted: drug use, illness, violence, sex and nudity among friends, and a 1990s fashion offshoot criticised as 'heroin chic'. Do not generate imitations: a fabricated diary of real-looking people misrepresents what makes the work matter and risks glamorising drug use and harm. Instead photograph your own consenting adult friends, let them veto what is shown, credit them, and never show minors in intimate or nude scenes.

## Photographs

- Nan Goldin, Jimmy Paulette & Misty in a Taxi, NYC, 1991. Collection SFMOMA. © Nan Goldin. In copyright, linked: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/94.158/
- Nan Goldin, Couple in Bed, Chicago, 1977. Collection SFMOMA. © Nan Goldin. In copyright, linked: https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/91.501/
- Wolfgang Tillmans, Lutz & Alex sitting in the trees, 1992. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (uploaded by the artist, permission ticket 2014050910011123). Shown on the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lutz_%26_Alex_sitting_in_the_trees.jpg

## Sources

- The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Sexual_Dependency (photographs 1979–86, 1985 Whitney Biennial slideshow, 1986 Aperture book, over 700 images, friends in the Lower East Side drug scene, snapshot aesthetic, influence and 'heroin chic')
- Nan Goldin, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Goldin (Ballad mostly indoors at night with flash, 'it's all flash-lit'; a 'diary I let people read'; 'this is my party'; subjects' veto; Larry Clark's Tulsa as model; Cibachrome prints)
- Snapshot aesthetic, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snapshot_aesthetic (harsh flash, poor framing and blur; dominant in 1990s youth fashion magazines such as The Face; Goldin, Tillmans, McGinley)
- Wolfgang Tillmans, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Tillmans (snapshot-like portraits of friends in i-D, Spex and Interview; Lutz & Alex sitting in the trees, 1992; half of his work staged; rejects the 'diaristic' label; Contax 50 mm SLR; Turner Prize 2000)
- Corinne Day, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinne_Day (Diary, 2000, her friends taking drugs and having sex; The Third Summer of Love, The Face, July 1990; withdrawal after the heroin chic debate)
- Ryan McGinley, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_McGinley (The Kids Are Alright, 1999; Whitney solo show 2003; friends; Yashica T4 and Leica R8 on 35 mm)
- Juergen Teller, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juergen_Teller ('amateur' aesthetic; Marc Jacobs campaigns; commissioned and personal work blurred, Go-Sees)
- SFMOMA collection records for Nan Goldin, Couple in Bed, Chicago (91.501) and Jimmy Paulette & Misty in a Taxi, NYC (94.158): https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/94.158/ (dates, dye destruction prints, sizes)
- Wolfgang Tillmans, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Tillmans (snapshot-like portraits of friends; a Contax 50 mm SLR)
- Ryan McGinley, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_McGinley (Yashica T4 and Leica R8 on 35 mm film)
- Yashica T4, Camera-wiki.org: https://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Yashica_T4 (Carl Zeiss Tessar 35 mm f/3.5; integrated flash; programmed shutter 1 s to 1/700 s; DX-coded film speeds ISO 50–3200)
- Nan Goldin, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Goldin (The Ballad mostly indoors at night with flash, 'it's all flash-lit'; colour slides projected as a slideshow; Cibachrome prints)

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From Lumogeny (https://lumogeny.com/), a service of Van Riel Online Services. The shoot sheet for your own camera, lenses and lights is on the page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/diaristic-snapshot/#sheet