Vernacular photography or amateur photography refers to the creation of photographs by amateur or unknown photographers who take everyday life and common things as subjects. Though the more commonly known definition of the word "vernacular" is a quality of being "indigenous" or "native," the use of the word in relation to art and architecture refers more to the meaning of the following subdefinition (of vernacular architecture) from The Oxford English Dictionary: "concerned with ordinary domestic and functional buildings rather than the essentially monumental." Examples of vernacular photographs include travel and vacation photos, family snapshots, photos of friends, class portraits, identification photographs, and photo-booth images. Vernacular photographs are types of accidental art, in that they often are unintentionally artistic.
Closely related to vernacular photography is found photography

Found photography

Found photography is a genre of photography and/or visual art based on the recovery of lost, unclaimed, or discarded photographs...

, which in one sense refers to the recovery of a lost, unclaimed, or discarded vernacular photograph or snapshot. Found photos are often found at flea markets, thrift and secondhand stores, yard sales, estate and tag sales, in dumpsters and trash cans, between the pages of books, or on streets and sidewalks.

The use of vernacular photography in the arts is almost as old as photography itself. Vernacular photography has become far more commonplace in recent years as an art technique and is now a widely accepted genre of art photography.

Vernacular photographs also have become popular with art collectors and with collectors of found photographs.

See also

• Snapshot (photography)
  Snapshot (photography)
  A snapshot is popularly defined as a photograph that is "shot" spontaneously and quickly, most often without artistic or journalistic intent. Snapshots are commonly considered to be technically "imperfect" or amateurish—out of focus or poorly framed or composed...
  
  
• Snapshot aesthetic
  Snapshot aesthetic
  The term snapshot aesthetic refers to a trend within fine art photography in the USA from around 1963 . The style typically features apparently banal everyday subject matter and off-centered framing. Subject matter is often presented without apparent link from image-to-image and relying instead on...