Had a great day yesterday of free form researching (improv researching?) online.
Here’s what I found, starting with following this link from artist Lyndsey Perth on (https://twitter.com/lippi) on Twitter:
‘Manipulated Photographs, Manipulated Memories‘
http://petapixel.com/2013/07/28/manipulated-photog…
An interesting blog post by a neuroscientist working with memory – especially interested in the last paragraph about the use of photographs to strengthen autobiographical memoir, and this quote, in the final paragraph:
“we should begin to explore how photography can be used in both helpful and harmful ways. How should we as individuals and as a society use photography to help maintain an accurate and precise history?”
I then followed this link, which discussed how the brain makes memories from photographic images: ‘Memories, Photographs, and the Human Brain‘
http://petapixel.com/2013/07/20/memories-photograp…
Then, a look at visual anthropology, finding this website www.visualanthropology.net/‎which contains some useful links, papers and publications. I chanced upon a post on conference in 2003 at the Tate about the relationship between anthropology and art which I found intriguing. http://www.visualanthropology.net/reviews/moffat.p… I then had a look at the MA in Visual Anthropology course information at Manchester University – I’m hoping to chat to someone about to start the course and wanted to get a handle on what the subject involves.
http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/discipl…
I can’t remember how, but I then stumbled upon a book by Gillian Rose photography, ‘Doing Family Photography: The Domestic, the Public and the Politics of Sentiment’
http://iss.sagepub.com/content/27/5/621.extract
Gillan Rose is Professor of Cultural Geography at The Open University, and her current research interests lie broadly within the field of visual culture. Reading an excerpt, I found the text refreshingly directly and without jargon. I found her blog, which again is very accessible and wide-ranging ttp://visualmethodculture.wordpress.com/more-about-gillian-rose/
Though the print version of ‘Doing Family Photography’ is very expensive, I managed to find an ebook version on Scribd for just over £4 (the cost of a 24 hour subscription) http://www.scribd.com/doc/99659160/Gillian-Rose-Do….
I’m not far into it but I’m already completely hooked, as it focusses not just the content or the politics of domestic photographs, but how they are used:
“Family photos are particular sorts of images embedded in specific practices , and it is the specifity of those practices that define a photograph as a family photo as much as, if not more than, what it pictures. What is important in a family photograph is: who took it; who it shows; where and how it is kept; who made copies of it and sent them to other people; who those other people are; and how it gets looked at by all those people.”
This brings me back to my own key statement about what my own project is essentially about:
‘How people use, and make meaning from their family photographs’.
I suspect this book is going to open up so much new thinking and inquiry. Hurrah for the internet.
Oh, and I finally Storyfied my Twiiter and Facebook responses to the question ‘What do you do with your family photographs?”
https://storify.com/JeanMcEwan/what-people-do-with…
