Daniel Yang | Postcards & Visual Culture: What they say about London, travel, and ourselves

Musings

Upper Pool of the Thames

From the Museum in Docklands in East London, the postcard of “Upper Pool of the Thames” is a 1930 monochromatic photograph of the view from the titled location toward Tower Bridge. It is from the Museum in Docklands/Port of London Library and Archive (PLA) collection. This representation of London doesn’t allude to history like the tourist postcards. Instead, it openly represents it through a historical photograph. It depicts a time when there was commercial shipping traffic on the River Thames. The boats and cranes are transferring barrels off the large ship. This high contrast grayscale photograph of industry is a very different perspective of London compared to the clean floodlit photograph of contemporary Tower Bridge. In contrast, Muir’s photograph contains saturated colors but no boats at all.

Canary Wharf

Also from the same museum is “Canary Wharf” by Carl Laubin. This photorealistic postcard is actually a reproduction of oil on canvas from the Museum of London’s collection. It represents the transformation phase that the Docklands of East London is currently undergoing. The symbol of the Docklands regeneration is the tall skyscraper, One Canada Square, and the surrounding area, which are commonly referred to as Canary Wharf. The industrial warehouses from the shipping era of London are literally crumbling in the foreground and giving rise to commercial offices. Interestingly enough, the cranes in this painting are building new fortresses of steel and glass instead of unloading cargo from ships. The two postcards from the Museum in Docklands show a different side to London that is not usually seen or considered by tourists. Most tourist sights are located in Central London, and therefore it is rare for anybody except locals, or those with more than a passing interest in London, to see postcards of East London.

Union Flag

Like those from small museums, postcards for sale at bookstores are also different from those marketed for mass tourism. The majority of postcards at stores like Foyles or Borders are generic stock images of cute animals, humorous scenes, or metaphors for emotions. In some cases there are even postcards depicting other foreign places! This can be attributed to the fact that large bookstore chains aren’t usually part of the tourist trade, and therefore have no stake in promoting the local sights. Instead, they are promoting the general idea of travel and romance to locals so that they will be inspired to go someplace and hopefully buy a guidebook or novel set in that location. However, amongst the various postcards, representations of London are bound to be included.

The postcard of the Union Flag reinterpreted with vivid colors printed onto a corrugated brown cardstock is one such example. It also happens to break the rules of postcard formats by not including restrictive lines on the back to divide message space from address and postage space. Though it can simply be seen through the lens of Britain as a whole, representing a vibrant, contemporary Britain, it makes more sense in a London context. London is the center of the United Kingdom and this interpretation of the flag points to the variety of colors that make up that Kingdom. The UK is predominantly white but in London there are significant percentages of other ethnicities. One in three Londoners belongs to an ethnic minority group. ⁹ This postcard symbolizes a multicultural and cosmopolitan London that sticks out from all the other postcards on the stand. This is indeed a different take on London than the tourist postcards because tourists aren’t necessarily looking for diversity when traveling abroad. Most are in search of “real” British culture. After all, “As tourists, we seek authenticity, an object, a truth somehow precedent to all representation—and then take photographs, lapsing back into the realm of image.” ⁶

Conclusion

By looking at a variety of selected postcards found around the city, we have seen how postcards play a role in tourism and in creating mythologies of London. Postcards represent the city to foreign visitors and residents alike. The standard representations are widely available from many vendors all around central London, but these are not the only representations. A fuller view of London can be developed by looking at postcards that are in less touristy areas such as the Museum in Docklands. These additional representations serve a different function from the tourist postcards by educating or making a statement rather than contributing to the creation of London as spectacle. Both types of postcards have their places and their content is determined by what market segments they serve. There is no doubt however that London, a modern city steeped in its own history, is richly represented by its postcards.

Postscript

As a photographer, it is always interesting to see postcards from different cities around the world when traveling. “Lapsing back into the realm of image” ⁶ is my main activity when encountering a new place. Postcards allow me to see what subjects have been photographed and how they have been represented. This allows me to include similar shots in my own shooting plan as well as think about what hasn’t been done yet. There is always conflict when one’s own work is described as postcard-esque. On the one hand it is an insult because it implies the photograph looks unoriginal and mass produced. But on the other hand it is a compliment because it means people enjoy the image enough that they would be willing to purchase copies of the image.

What makes the tourist postcard look distinctive is that the successful postcard must not only be striking but easy to digest visually. After all, the postcard isn’t very big even when it is oversized. What the postcard cannot be is personal. I mean this in terms of the photographer’s vision and in relation to the viewer. The composition should be aesthetically pleasing but must be generic enough so that multiple viewers can imagine themselves in the scene. The aims of the tourist postcard are twofold: to help the viewer remember a place after he or she has come and gone or to inspire wanderlust for those that haven’t been. Therefore, if an image is too unique or uncommon, the viewer cannot relate to it or be inspired to travel. This attribute sets the postcard photograph apart from other travel photographs such as the ones in National Geographic. Those photographs are definitely distinctive and even stunning in many cases. However, they are often eerie, violent, or taken in harsh conditions. They inspire wonder but one isn’t going to run out and book a plane ticket to a lot of those places even if he or she could. This is also why human figures are rarely portrayed on postcards. There is very little chance that one is going to encounter that particular stranger. The exception is people in uniform because the uniform causes the person to lose their individuality and in turn represent a larger institution. It is London’s break from this convention that signifies the unique celebrity status of royalty in the United Kingdom. Celebrities are public figures who we sometimes feel that we know personally through the media even though we have never met them before. This is what I found most interesting about London’s postcards. Well, that and the sexually cheeky ones out in public view that really demonstrate just how different the United Kingdom are from the United States.

Piccadilly Circus Up References List

Without Prejudice? Exploring ethnic differences in London. (1991). Mayor of London, the London Assembly and the Greater London Authority. Retrieved December 3, 2005, from http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/publications/without_prejudice/without_prejudice1.jsp.