Photographic Practice Research Articles

(Dis)Affect, Photography, Place

Migrants are connected for a variety of reasons (Leurs and Prabhakar 2018, p. 247), and in a myriad of ways (Cabalquinto 2018; Özdemir, Mutluer, and Özyürek 2019; Gencel Bek and Prieto-Blanco 2020). Drawing from a larger project of ethnographic nature (Prieto-Blanco 2016b), this paper argues that photographic practices advance socialization in transnational families, and that each practice activates certain relational affordances to support bonding and familial intimacy. This also serves to offer an alternative reading of phatic communication (Malinowski 1923) as an emotion‐based process. Finally, the paper proposes to understand (digital) photography as a medium of (inter)action and experience for transnational families.

Black Life and Photographic Time

Photographer and video artist LaToya Ruby Frazier’s The Notion of Family series (2001–14) strikingly looks forward through the past. The project traces its origins to Frazier’s teen years growing up in the industrial suburb of Braddock, Pennsylvania, a once-thriving mill town just nine miles outside of Pittsburgh that drew many African Americans northward in the decades following the failures of Reconstruction. Braddock began experiencing rapid decline in the 1970s when American steel no longer dominated the global market. The Braddock that Frazier grew up in was characterized by many of the markers of industrial disintegration: widespread unemployment, decaying infrastructure, increased drug addiction, and palpable rage and despair about the collapse of the economy and local industry, among them. Frazier uses her photographic practice to document some of these developments and reckon with the implications and meanings of these changes in conditions for those suffering their consequences. Often central to and reflected in the artist’s work is a critique of narratives of progress. This article examines the ways The Notion of Family series bears witness to Black life experienced in real time while also demonstrating the impossibility of the dominant temporal order to account for Black living and being. Sharpening focus on several of the images of Frazier’s Grandma Ruby, featured in the series, The Notion of Family also examines how Frazier uses her photographic practice to refuse the kind of willful forgetting and violent obfuscating that insists upon rendering invisible or fungible Black people who have vitalized communities like Braddock for generations.

Diffracted Photography: A Luminous Entanglement

Anchored on Karen Barad’s diffraction concept, this experiment puts philosophical concept to work in the practice of photography to produce knowledge differently. This photographic essay accounts for the materialities in photography, the photographer-researcher’s entanglement with the ecology while navigating Cambodia’s Angkor temples. The experiment departs from the conventional ways of photography as representations of reality instead, looks at photography as a relational assemblage, a diffractive intra-action between humans and non-humans, always reconfigured in its infinite becomings. To surface how photographs are actualized entails being entangled in the mesh: the triggers, movements, and sensation, creating diffractive patterns. Weaving the footages while photographing the site produces luminous layers of visuals, a sheer reminder that photographers and its apparatuses are entangled with other than humans and calls for response-able actions in acknowledging the constitutive materialities of the ecology which we are only part of.

Photography with/in a Broader Humanity

In 2010, I was commissioned to create a portrait of Ngarrindjeri artist, Rita Lindsay Jnr for Country Arts SA (South Australia). We met at a healing ceremony at the coastal town of Goolwa in Ngarrindjeri Country. The aim of the ceremony was to attend the trauma caused by the building of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge; an action by developers that instigated South Australia’s most tragic land rights battle. Becoming familiar with the story of Kumarangk and the bridge became a catalyst for a two-year conversation with Rita, her mother and grandmother. What followed was an invitation to use the medium of photography to explore the metaphysical relationship between Country and its human kin. What began as a single exhibition of works in 2013 has now prospectively become a life’s work. To date this has spanned three exhibitions, an Honours project and a PhD, all of which aim to articulate a practice of relational photography over one that objectifies its subjects. Acknowledging the ontological divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge production, my aim is to talk about the notion of relational photography through the idea of kin-making across cultural knowledges and thinking. This paper is an introduction to a practice-based research project I have enacted over the last decade that troubles landscape photography and is motivated by the desire to decolonise my own thinking. By decolonisation, I mean the disinvestment in colonial hierarchies, binary thinking and practices of anthropocentrism.

The Use of Dental Photography in Saudi Arabia

Introduction: Dental photography has always been an important aspect of the practice. The basic goal of digital dental photography is to capture the clinical symptoms of the oral cavity as accurately as possible. Secondary applications include dento-legal documentation, teaching, communication, portfolios, and marketing as a spin-off. This study aimed to assess the practice of photography documentation among dental students and dental practitioners in Riyadh using a cross-sectional observational study. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted using a self-administered survey distributed online. The sample included dental students (5th and 6th year), dental interns, postgraduate residents, and specialists. Frequency distribution and Chi-square tests were performed to compare the participant's responses. Results: A total of 218 dental practitioners were completed a structured, self-administered online questionnaire. The majority of the participants were dental interns and specialists, and more than 70% had 10 years or less of experience. Eighty-six percentage study participants reported using photography in their practices. Mobile phones were the most commonly used devices among dental practitioners. Conclusions: The results of the current study showed that the majority of dental practitioners believed that photography is essential in modern dental practice. However, to implement photography in dental practice, clarification of the general guidelines and the need for obtaining written consent must be explained to the patient. Furthermore, there is a need to incorporate photography within the dental curriculum.

Blubilds – drawing diagrammatic stains

This project adopts the concept of a dance diagram such as Andy Warhol’s Fox Trot (1962) introduced by Rosalind Krauss in her writing on the relationship of material forces in a diagrammatic structure to create a model of notation with actions and objects derived from Edgelands. Coined by Marion Shoard, Edgelands are post-industrial cityscapes, a typology of abandon, dereliction and decay. Shoard notes these sites are characterized by creative cultural practices of photography and graffiti; urban explorers, parkour. My Blubilds project aimed to challenge these cultural practices of parkour and graffiti to provoke new engagement in those sites. To this end, I apply the concept of Rosalind Krauss’s resistant diagram and gravity I adapted from Formless: A User’s Guide (). Gravity is a force of undoing to remake spaces – and I draw with my body and equipment to facilitate gravity within a dance diagram to create a new space. This contrasts the cultural practices such as Graffiti and parkour and breaks with those existing activities to tag, mark and leave a new trace in Edgelands. Blubilds draw a live embodied diagram, based on the movement patterns found in Edgeland sites, since ‘action’ is to draw a line with the body. Tim Ingold’s approach to drawing informs my perspective that lines of movement that draw (in) place engage with the lived narratives of those places. Ingold suggests that the narratives that make place are created by entangled lines created by movement; furthermore, to ‘draw out’ – as in Douglas phrase – suggests that drawing in place ‘draws-out’ new spaces. Blue is emblematic as a nod to Krauss’s ‘rude noise, the blueprint and the acts of Graffiti’, it becomes Blubilds – a dynamic diagrammatic stain.

Photography's Materialities: Transatlantic Photographic Practices over the Long Nineteenth Century ed. by Geoff Bender and Rasmus R. Simonsen (review).

Photography's Materialities: Transatlantic Photographic Practices over the Long Nineteenth Century ed. by Geoff Bender and Rasmus R. Simonsen (review).

Peasantry and appearance at work: a study of the allochronic bias of a photographic practice

L’anthropologie drague avec elle une nostalgie intrinsèque longuement documentée. Ce biais épistémologique conduit non seulement à une mise à distance temporelle de nos objets d’étude, mais également une esthétisation exotisante de nos terrains de recherche. Cet article consiste à analyser de manière réflexive un de mes corpus photographique, réalisé auprès d’un collectif néo-paysan en France. L’apparence au travail de la néo-paysannerie y est représentée de façon archétypale, gommant les rapports de genre et réalités du travail de la terre en collectif libertaire. La transparence et l’horizontalité avec les personnes que j’ai rencontrées se révèlent ici crucial pour déconstruire les biais allochroniques qui avaient jalonné mes premiers pas sur le terrain.

An evaluation of injury photography practices in Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARC)

A review was carried out of injury photography methods in a Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC). An initial case study review was conducted with a London based SARC where injury photography of sexual assault complainants was routinely undertaken, and has been for over six years. These images are taken by medical staff using ‘point and shoot’ compact cameras. Following this and to gain an impression of the national picture, a short survey was sent to 58 SARCs to determine the use of photography in capturing injuries, noting the regularity of its use and the specific types of photographic equipment used. 40 out of the 58 SARCS replied and responses show only three routinely use digital photography as a means to document bodily images. The technique was employed, but not routinely or only infrequently, at a further 20 SARCs. In a further seven centres digital photography was only used for self-referral cases to document general body images, the client's being photographed by the police photographers in any case with police involvement. Five SARCs organised training for their examiners on a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) photography course, none of which subsequently use their DSLR camera to document bodily injuries. Interestingly, two SARCs report using a colposcope as their camera when they consider that photography ‘can't wait’ as, for example, when they consider the injury may well disappear by the time police photography can be arranged. The review suggests compact cameras require shorter training, are cheaper to buy, easier to use and produce images suitable for use in court.

Archiving the Algerian Revolution in Zineb Sedira's Gardiennes d'images

Archiving the Algerian Revolution in Zineb Sedira's <i>Gardiennes d'images</i>

“Africa's First Woman Press Photographer”: Mabel Cetu's Photographs in Zonk!

“Africa's First Woman Press Photographer”: Mabel Cetu's Photographs in <i>Zonk!</i>

Performing consanguinity: Lesbian family photography practices

Drawing on interviews, autobiographies, and online ethnography, this paper explores the ways in which nonbiological lesbian parents and their family members use photographs to articulate their family relationships with their nonbiological children. Although a biogenetic link to children was perceived as unnecessary, even irrelevant, to their love for their children, nearly all the participants expressed exhilaration when the nonbiological offspring looked like or acted like the nonbiological parent. Many nonbiological parents composed and displayed photographs in ways to highlight similarity between themselves and their children. In this way, nonbiological parents “perform” consanguinity—a blood connection—for critical audiences, including themselves. Yet, the “display work” of queer family analyzed in this paper never fully masks their difference from the norm. The lesbian photography practices discussed in this paper suggest that while genetic thinking shapes family practices, they are also creating new meanings. Through photography practices, lesbian families demonstrate how doing queer kinship transforms heteronormative belonging.

Visual duplication: specimens, works of art and photographs at the Musée d'ethnographie du Trocadéro (1928-1935).

The article considers how the use of duplicates and the practice of photography interacted in museums of ethnography, contributing to the ambivalent framing of ethnographic objects as items that can be both scientific specimens and works of art. It focuses on the Musée d'ethnographie du Trocadéro in Paris and on the key period of its reorganization between 1928 and 1935, which was central to the institutionalization of French ethnology. By examining the place of duplicates in this museum, as well as the major role attributed to photographs of objects and their materiality, the paper shows that these others of the ethnographic artefacts, often considered separately from their originals, still participated in the same project: the development of the museum and its growing cultural influence. While the duplicates positioned the museum in the various networks of the scientific community, the photographs appealed to the avant-garde, amateurs, African and Oceanian art dealers and the general public.

Pendampingan Fotografi dan Desain Grafis di Sekolah Menengah Pertama Katolik (SMPK Kesuma) Mataram

Condition of the Catholic Junior High School (SMPK Kesuma) in the COVID-19 pandemic has paralyzed the field trip activities programmed by the school every year. With the soaring Covid-19 cases in Mataram, the school replaced the field trip activities with photography and graphic design training. Photography and graphic design training aims to foster students' talents and interests in dealing with the development of science, technology and art in this current era. The method of implementing this training is by simulation and practice of photography and graphic design. Stages The activity begins with a classical presentation of the material, explaining photography techniques using simple tools such as smartphones. Furthermore, providing assistance in the practice of photography and graphic design. Graphic design assistance is carried out using a simple application available on a smartphone to produce Lombok food promotion posters. The photographic work produced becomes the task of cultural arts and the poster work made by students becomes the assessment of the tourism work program..

Amateurism: An Alternative Narrative of Photography in China, Part I

As the first part of a long history-ethnography dedicated to amateur photography in China – an understudied, yet impactful, visual culture within the country’s modern history and contemporary society – this article provides a historical account of the shifts in the definition of ‘amateurism’ in Chinese social, cultural, and ideological scenes from the 1840 s to the present. It argues that the idea(l) of amateurism is rooted in traditional Chinese cultural elites and representative of an avant-garde spirit, which was invested in photographic practices before the technology was popularized in China in the 1980s. The article also identifies how a new kind of photographic amateurism began to develop with the rise of the urban middle class in the 1980s. Today, photography embodies the thriving mass culture and has become ubiquitous in ordinary people’s everyday lives as a medium that empowers the invisible to emerge and the muted to speak.

Humanising the Squatter: Photography in the Service of Resettlement in Emergency-era Malaya

This article explores the ways in which photography was used by the colonial state in Malaya to promote the supposed success of resettlement – the counterinsurgency scheme through which around half a million people were forcibly moved into camps, later renamed ‘New Villages’, during the Malayan Emergency (1948–60). While this study engages with the ways in which the racialised category of the ‘squatter’ – that is, rural Chinese who were the main object of resettlement – was reflected in official photography, it also argues for the need to consider such photography within broader developments in photographic practice and consumption in Southeast Asia during the early 1950s. These include the role of local Malayan photographers as part of the state propaganda apparatus and the emergence of Humanist photojournalism as a mode of expression in the same period. In doing this, the article suggests that the interaction between colonial photography and commercial photojournalism in Malaya complicates the extant literature on the ‘colonial gaze’ while contributing to an emerging body of research on the tensions between colonialism and Humanism in early postwar photography.

Beyond Sentimentality: The Family as Patron, Subject and Author of Early Photography in Colonial Australia

This article investigates the first decade and a half of photographic practice in the Australian colonies from the perspective of family participation in the portrait marketplace. The article argues that this period has largely been narrated around determining the point of photography’s arrival. This approach risks underplaying both the significant innovation and entrepreneurship that defined early photographic practice in this part of the British Empire and how photographic culture engaged with settlers’ dispossession of First Nations land. This is not to say that early colonial Australian photography developed in isolation. Rather, the evasion of early British photography patents, as well as Australia’s geographic location diluted the perpetuation of the English studio model in this part of the world. This, in turn, impacted the kinds of individuals who practised as daguerreian photographers in the colonies and – because of the appetites of colonial society, particularly settler families – the types of photographic products offered.

Extension of Meanings: Text and Image in Contemporary Chinese Photographic Works

This essay focuses on an aspect of photographic practices that are often seen but seldom discussed in contemporary Chinese photography: the creative practices that focus on the relationship (e.g. complementarity and contrast) between text and image. Concerning the traditions of Chinese literati painting, contemporary semiotic theories from the West, and the development of narratologies, this essay examines the works of several contemporary photographic artists in China that combine text and image. More specifically, it focuses on the theoretical framework behind the diverse practices of the twenty-first century. It addresses three main topics: the traditions of Chinese literati painting (which includes poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seal carving), Roland Barthes’ semiotic theory and its application in the visual world, and the theories and paradigms of storytelling in the evolution of narratology into its newer form. In addition, the essay explores how text and image theories and paradigms of different origins exist in contemporary art practices, as well as how they have extended the meanings of these works through the complementarity and conflict between text and image.

The Old Toponymy and New Topography of Zion: Utah, Photography, and Daniel George's Series God to Go West

The Old Toponymy and New Topography of Zion: Utah, Photography, and Daniel George's Series <i>God to Go West</i>

Cyber-physical traveler performances and Instagram travel photography as ideal impression management

ABSTRACT While there is significant existing research linking travel photography to self-presentation, it is the effects of ‘Instagrammability’ that mobilize significant shifts in the motivations and behaviours of tourists. This paper applies Goffman’s (1956) notion of impression management unfolding as a performance, with both front- and backstage characteristics. This research finds that the frontstage in this context is identified as the cyber behaviour, while the backstage encapsulates the physical manifestations that occur ‘behind the scenes’ to ‘get the shot’. By employing both content analysis and ethnography, new social norms of using travel images for impression management were identified in which there is a clear motive to match the ‘Instagram aesthetic’. A refreshed code of choreographed movements as photographic practices has emerged that did not exist before the popularization of Instagram. Less than 2% of photos analyzed solely feature the landscape, reinforcing the shift to self-presentation strategies as the foremost importance.