Any photography lecturers out there?

[mrtoml]

I have been out of photography for a couple of years, but recently was asked to teach a course on visual methods to social scientists (for post-graduate students). I am a sociologist, but have a degree in History of Art.

I like street photography and am just in the process of re-acquiring some 'street style' cameras (a Ricoh GRD II and Fuji X100). I have previous experience with the GRD I and used to own a Leica M6 among others.

I was wondering whether anyone here uses street photography (both at a theoretical and/or practical level) in the sense of gathering and analysing data and using it to document social life in a formal way? Any academics here who might have references or advice that would help me design a course with a strong theoretical and practical photographic/documentary component? Any advice would be appreciated. I am currently staring at a completely blank slate and have a free hand to design the course any way I want to.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I am a documentary photographer, but not really doing what most people here think of as street photography. I just finished my masters degree in history, and used my work for some of my academic work. I have a PDF that I turned in alongside a documentary photography project I did for a class on realism in art and literature. We had to do an original artistic or literary project that used realism, and then present the artwork in a lecture. The assignment required us to also turn in a short explanatory paper about our working methods, in addition to the lecture and presentation. If you want to see it, the PDF is here:

http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/essays/wells-street.pdf

The project contained many more photos than the PDF shows, and I continued it after the class ended. I'm still working on it, but you can see what I have so far here:

http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/chris-results.php?category=7

 

[mrtoml]

Thanks a lot for that, Chris. I guess I should probably expand my realm beyond street photography to documentary photography more generally...

 

[Sparrow]

There is the Media Museum in Bradford, but I'm not sure the extent of their resources.

 

[gns]

It might be worth looking up the work of John Collier (sp?), an American anthropologist and photographer.

Gary

("might be" is a bit of an understatement. This guy was an important pioneer in the field of visual anthropology).

 

[kbg32]

I lecture on photography now and then. I have been working on a number of simultaneous projects over the years -

http://www.pbase.com/keithbg/broadway&page=all

http://www.pbase.com/keithbg/chinatown&page=all

http://www.pbase.com/keithbg/looking_on&page=all

Others here - http://www.pbase.com/keithbg/root&page=all

If you have any specific questions, you can PM me.

Cheers,

Keith

 

[Peter_wrote:]

don't know, if this helps you much.. just in a kind of brainstorming i throw in the booktitle "Photography and Society" by Gisèle Freund

 

[mrtoml]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[ampguy]

When someone else picks up my costco prints for me, and looks at them. I have to lecture them on why I took each photo. The meaning, the reason, the justification.

There must be a high bar for art appreciation in our household ...

 

[gns]

Don't know if you are still interested in this, but over the weekend, while looking at some stuff on flick, I discovered this...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johncollierjr/.
He died in 1992 so this was obviously posted by someone else (his children maybe?).
I looked him up on Amazon and his original textbook on the subject is still available.

Trivia/connection... Bill Owens (whose famous 1973 book, Suburbia you may have seen) was a student of Collier's.

Gary

 

[MartinP]

You could have a read of "On Being a Photographer". It's reprinted by Lenswork and there are also PDF's (of unknown legality) floating around the web.

This might help stimulate some thoughts on the tricky bit between the idea and the execution, if nothing else.

 

[Teuthida]

I would recommend three Works I've used to help beginning students shed some of their naivity about photos and how they function:

The Photograph: A Strange, Confined Space by Mary Price - HOw the languGe of description attached to a photo determines how the photo is viewed, and how the use of any given photo determines its meaning.

Believing Is Seeing by Errol Morris - How photos both obscure and reveal, and how the viewer's preconceptions influence what the pboto "shows."

Critcisizing Photographs by Terry Barrett - How to make critical judgments about photographs. In valuable.

 

[Gary B]

Not really sure if this is what you are looking for but I found her thoughts very interesting. Have a look @:http://photoethnography.com/

 

[Pablito]

Try "The Nature of Photographs" by S. Shore, you might find it useful.

 

[venchka]

I think that the collective paranoia re: anyone using a camera anywhere near groups of people would provide fodder for multiple graduate projects.
Variation on a theme: Use different hardware. Vary camera and lens size. See if you get different responses.
Document disappearing urbanscapes. You would be amazed how quickly visual scenes change.
Good luck. Keep us informed on your progress.

William Eggleston.

Wayne