Becoming a Scrapbooker

Each Wednesday, I write a post the comes from my study about scrapbooking.

Ultimately, once someone becomes a scrapbooker, they begin viewing the world through the eyes of a scrapbooker, as a member of the scrapbooking thought community (or subculture)—dividing their world up into the scrapworthy and the not scrapworthy. One respondent articulates this point:

Like we used to go on vacations before my mom scrapbooked and we took very little pictures and now we go places just to take pictures [laughs]. It’s so silly and like they—I don’t know my brother and my dad—they’re teasing us about it but they’re really not teasing us—they’re saying, ‘I’m glad that you love us enough to take 5,000 pictures at Disney World®,’ which we did. We took 5,000 pictures [laughs].

Because they are going to create a scrapbook about their trip to Disney World®, this respondent and her mom took many more photographs than they otherwise would have taken.

In another case, a respondent took steps to preserve her wedding bouquet in a way that she would be able to include portions of it in her scrapbook. If she had not planned on scrapbooking her bouquet she would not have taken care to preserve it like she did.

Goodsell and Seiter (2010:23-24) also find this to be true in their study. They state:

Occasionally a picture will seem posed, but Deborah insisted that she would not put a baby onto someone’s lap to create a photo opportunity. Instead, she carried the camera with her so that she was ready when a particular moment happened.

Scrapbookers, like photobloggers (Cohen 2005), become open to photo opportunities in their everyday life and now there is a place to showcase and share those photos. One scrapbooker is sure to throw her tiny digital camera in her purse when she wants to be sure she has one handy. Another respondent, who only began scrapbooking nine months before our interview, was not regularly a photographer. She took pictures of special events but did not usually have her camera with her. She says:

I am thinking about it more [taking her camera with her] than I would have been in the past like before I started scrapbooking. And when I think about it, all I think after an event is like, oh, I wish I had taken pictures. Now I think, okay, I have to remember to take my camera. And I might still not even remember to take pictures, but it still has changed my mindset somehow that I do think I am trying to keep a record of things that happened.

This respondent talks about how she tries to remember to take her camera with her more often especially for the things that are not as special (e.g., dinner with friends). Scrapbooking is changing her photography habits. Scrapbookers are more likely to carry their camera with them once they become a scrapbooker if they were not already doing so.

So at what point did you first begin identifying as a scrapbooker? Comment below or join the conversation on facebook or twitter.

References:
Cohen, Kris R. 2005. “What Does the Photblog Want?” Media, Culture & Society 27(6):883-901.
Goodsell, Todd L. and Liann Seiter. 2010. “Scrapbooking: Family Capital and the Construction of Family Discourse.” Bringham Young University.

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Stephanie