Photography A Very Short Introduction

Stephen Edwards, Photography A Very Short Introduction, 2006, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN: 978-0-19-280164-7 (Kindle Edition). In my opinion, this is a very good book and a very important book to read for any photographer. Notes/Quotes: Documentary is said to provide its viewers with direct access to truth. In his pioneering book on the subject,

Summary for Part 2, Other

Part 2, Other, began by looking at how photography has played its part in violence against the other, siting Victorian photography as one example of asserting colonial power over weaker subjected peoples of other ethnic and cultural societies. Artists such as Mark Sealy have been addressing these troubling histories with work and exhibitions such as

Questioning Identity: Gender, Class, Nation.

Kath Woodward, (ed.) (2000) Questioning Identity: Gender, Class, Nation, London: Routledge. ISBN: 0-415-22288-5. This publication is part a series of books for the study of social science through the Open University, published in 2000 it is probably a little dated now as it pulls from examples no later than the 1990s. However, as a book

Summary for Part 1, Looking at Them – The Representation of the Other.

I began this section with a preliminary exercise as a kind ice breaker in which I took photographs of people incognito and this really reaffirmed my discomfort of street photography which I think has become much harder to practise in our modern society that is now always under the gaze of CCTV and the world

Reading Task – White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack​ by Peggy McIntosh.

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack​ by Peggy McIntosh. (1988) Notes and Quotes McIntosh starts her essay discussing how men have more power and privilege over women and that although men may accept that women are not treated equally to men, few men would agree that they are over privileged and should give some of it

Exercise 2.2 – ‘Kept from View’

In today’s world and society there are still groups of people kept from view. Some are kept out of view by others for political or economic reasons and some through our own guilt. The Homeless. The mentally ill. Modern slavery/workers bonded to an employer by a dept. Families under the poverty line / the poor.

Melanie Manchot

Melanie Manchot, born 1966, Germany, studied in New York before moving to London to complete her studies, London based. Manchot first came to prominence with photographs she made of her naked mother both in the studio and against backgrounds of landscapes and cityscapes which was a contributor to a growing debate around the representation of

The ‘Other’ in the history of photography

Because photography was seen as the ideal tool for providing evidence due to its perceived indexicality, it was used to observe and record the face and head. In the 1850s and 1860s the British eugenicist Francis Galton obtained portrait photographs of criminals from the archive of Millbank Prison. He meticulously re-photographed theses pictures, exposing a

Notes from the Margin of Spoilt Identity – The Art of Diane Arbus By Gerry Badger (1988)

Notes from the Margin of Spoilt Identity – The Art of Diane Arbus by Gerry Badger (1988). The above link will take you to the essay, Notes from the Margin of Spoilt Identity – The Art of Diane Arbus By Gerry Badger Published in Phototexts (1988) Topless dancer in her dressing room, San Francisco, California.

Rineke Dijkstra

Rineke Dijkstra, born 1959. A Dutch photographer, Dijkstra specialises in single portraits and works in series, looking at groups such as adolescents, soldiers, clubbers etc. Below are two photographs from two of her projects, Beach Portraits (1992) and in another small project Dijkstra took portrait photos of three women who had just given birth within a