This article addresses some important matters regarding the arrangement of photographs in archives. It considers archiving an act of communication. As such, it is structured around the narrative of the life and work of José Pedro Miranda, a conservative intellectual and historian who produced a great deal of documentation, particularly a significant number of photographs of the city of Ribeirão Preto, in the second half of the Twentieth Century. We shall analyze the photos collected by José Pedro Miranda. Thus, the documental nature of photography is discussed, with an emphasis on the archival environment, where significance exists in a series, as well as in the unit. Interpretations of construction of libraries as narratives are used as a reference to the possibility of understanding personal archives.
image and information; photography; photographic archives; collections; Ribeirão Preto public and historic archive; José Pedro Miranda