Camera archana: tracing a life in photographs

How does a photograph speak to us – apart from by way of its obvious referents and associations? Is there a hidden vitality that enlivens a photographic image? Is this quality animated by the passage of time? Such questions have a geneology as long as the history of photography itself. This essay is consists of a short biography of Sophia Klaase and my relationship with both her and her photographs. It will attempt to impart another way of perceiving the incommensurable sense of place and identity contained in Klasse’s visual narrative of her life and times. The various debates and disquisitions on the agency of photographic images will be discussed in relation to Sophia Klaase’s archive of images and the subjective and emotional impact these have had on my life.