A Social Medium: Collaboration in Photography

One camera, one viewfinder: photography is often understood as a solitary practice. Throughout the medium’s history, however, artists have challenged the notion of one-person authorship. These photographs from the Morgan’s collection emerged from distinct forms of collaborative production, and each one of them encourages us to reconsider the common assumption that photographs reflect a single moment captured by an individual.

Photographers have taken many approaches to working cooperatively, such as forming collectives, partnering with illustrators, documenting others’ performance-based art, or collaging photographic fragments to create new images. Ultimately, collaboration is a foundational component of nearly all photography: the labor of multiple people is almost always required to capture, print, and circulate camera images. By decentering individual authorship and instead considering photography as a social medium, these artists fundamentally expand our understanding of the diverse processes by which photographs can be made.