Figurations of the body in the snapshot of digital photojournalism: the non-pose and disfiguration

Abstract

This article analyses the technological changes that have modified the snapshot in photojournalism. Formerly, snapshot was a result of the technique and expertise of the photographer. Today, due to a kind of “agility” of the cameras, it has become a possible practice for any photo-reporter. Sequential photographs turn the portrayed subject’s body into a pliant element of the editorial process. In figurations that privilege unfulfilled gestures and disfigurements, some images published by the press symbolically alter the social representation of the person portrayed. The study described within this paper also points to the use of an aesthetic of the grotesque, present in the expressions, gestures and posture of the subject photographed and to a discourse of the snapshot as a regime of power exerted by the press.