"Vernacular photography refers to the creation of photographs by amateur or unknown photographers who take everyday life and common things as subjects." (source)
Together with the "domestic and functional" definition of vernacular, I conclude that this genre of photography aims to document everyday life for the purpose of historical record. This could be in any form, from family photo albums to government records.
Each of us looked at a particular photographer whose work relates to Vernacular photography. I looked at August Sander, a German photographer of the twentieth century, who set out to create a portrait of German life. He took over 40,000 photographs, which now, when observed as an archive, serve as an enlightening historical record of all planes of life in Germany in the 1920's and 30's. The photographs captured, not the necessarily the personalities of the subjects - which are best captured when the photograph is unexpected, such as mid-laugh - but the way in which they presented themselves to him, and therefore what they aspired to be. This teaches us more about the emotions of early twentieth century Germans than many other forms of record of that time.
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