Photos as rites, rites in images: the photography of fifteen years of four colombian youngs

Abstract

In this article I elaborate a reflection on the photography and its relationship with the fifteen years celebrations. The study is made from the review of photographic records and forms of celebration — events and travels — of four Colombian fifteen years birthday parties, through a qualitative analysis that starts from the application of collective interviews with the families of the young women and the revision of photographic images from your albums. Theoretically, photography is understood as sociocultural practice, conceptualization that takes contributions from semiotics, sociohistory and visual social research. The analysis that I propose of the celebrations of the indicated cases and their records in images, it is realized from the implications of the passage of girl to woman and its photographic capture. Thence, I conclude that photography has a social use that goes beyond the desire to eternalize the ritual of event in images, because it is a ritual practice that helps to mediate the passage from girl to girl.