A Personal Reflection...

Visual Sociology: A Personal Reflection

Hi,

When I learned that there was a visual sociology module available to work on as part of my BA (Hons) Social Sciences, I was keen to take it as I have enjoyed the sociology modules most out of all the subjects I have taken. However, I was concerned that I knew very little about photography – having done no more than pointed a digital camera and clicked without the need to even focus in the past – and I knew even less about blogging. As far as I was concerned, that existed only as a word I had heard my teenage daughters use from time to time. I had certainly never looked at a blog as far as I could recall, having barely even touched a computer prior to starting my degree.

However, I had managed to use, if not master, the computer as far as using the blackboard package goes, plus I had picked up how to type up documents and submit them; I had also learned how to do A LOT of research. When I considered this I decided to take the visual sociology module.

When I took my first set of photographs which were meant to illustrate the rule of thirds, before and after, and I compared them to the photographs produced by other students on this course, I was worried because my photographs were awful. However, at the first Video Conference (also my first ever experience of a VC!), my tutor took the time to explain to me how the photographs could be cropped and better presented. I decided to take time to read over the lecture notes, the recommended reading and to access all the websites listed in the lecture notes and try to visualise in my mind’s eye the techniques and the resulting photographs from this information. I felt that my photographs could only get better.

I visited a few locations which I had discussed and planned with my tutor and the rest of the class and I simply took hundreds of photographs - bearing in mind what I had learned about composition - and with the word “discourses” in my mind.

From there I sifted through the photographs and began to see sociological themes emerging; I think this could be argued to be a grounded theory approach. I discarded many photographs on the grounds that they either did not fit with these themes or because they were perhaps unclear, too bright or too dark, or because I had accidentally taken a photograph with someone or something in it that I didn’t want. Perhaps, on reflection, they could have been put into their own special category!

I discussed with my tutor how to physically start a blog. He explained to me the principles of how it works and who could access it and he also advised me that I could submit my material in other ways if I so wished. However, he also explained that the ability to make a blog could be a tool which future employers would  find desirable and since I want to become a primary teacher, I could see how that would be very useful in the classroom. As I read and submitted the required material and built up the blocks of photographs under various discourse headings I grew in confidence. I was particularly pleased with some of the photographs I taken that were examples of close cropping; s-shapes and diagonal lines, so I posted them on my blog.

Over time my blog has built up and I have taken advice from my tutor via the weekly VC’s, email and telephone and I am very happy with how it has turned out. I think it has gone much better than I first anticipated and I feel confident about using it now.

I am glad I chose to do this module as I have enjoyed being creative and I can now blog – something I never thought I could do!  

Best wishes, Kim

The Camera Never Lies: The Partiality of Photographic Evidence.

From: Image Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers (1998), edited by Jon Prosser.Routledge, Oxon. pp 60-68.

The Camera Never Lies: The Partiality of Photographic Evidence.



Hi,
here is my summary and comments on this chapter.
Best wishes, Kim 


This chapter of Prosser’s book is concerned with the subjective nature of photographic evidence.

Winston opens with quotes from the French Chamber of Deputies and the French House of Peers, both made in 1839, which hail the invention of the camera as a scientific instrument which will “accelerate the progress of one of the sciences, which most honours the human spirit”, akin to the microscope in terms of the nature of its potential contribution to the scientific method (Arago, cited in Prosser, 1998, p60).

Winston argues that although photography has, since its inception, laid claim on science allowing it to be considered as evidence, it could be argued that the claim is too strong to allow the photograph to be viewed as evidence by itself, given the opportunities for manipulation. He makes reference to the fact that the authenticity of previously authenticated photographs are being brought into question stating that the “illusion” of photographs as evidence of the external world is ending.

Winston discusses the historical attempts to produce legislation to manage the procedures employed in photography and to prepare a code of practice for the manipulation of photographs in particular. However, Winston acknowledges that the technological developments, since the time that the proposal for this bill was suggested by Andrew Bennett in the House of Commons in 1994, have advanced at an unexpectedly exponential rate. Indeed, Bennett had claimed at the time that

            “Most people are aware of the old adage ‘the camera never lies’. It seems to me that many people still believe it.....Most people believe pictures, particularly those accompanied by a well-respected voice on the television”,

(Bennett, 1994, cited in Prosser, 1998, pp60-61).

Bennett’s proposals for legislation were fuelled by the notion of photography as a science and as a way of producing evidence of various phenomena, and not purely as a form of art as thought at its inception. The process of photography was virtually unseen and was not considered to be an opportunity for manipulation or human intervention at the time, which meant that the photograph was viewed, uncritically, as evidence. Photographs were seen as a sign of nature where the photographic plate was forced to correspond, point by point, to nature.

However, the limitations of photography’s evidentiary power was not overlooked, as Bennett stated that although people believed the old adage that the camera never lies, they did so being aware that pictures have, in the past, been faked. Winston argues that these contradictory ideas, regarding photography, arise because deliberate manipulation of photographs (certainly at the time that this chapter was written) was outwith the everyday experience of people. Obviously manipulated photographs were the exception that proved the evidentiary rule and although recognising that manipulation is possible, it has been generally considered that, on balance, the chances are that the camera is not lying. This balance of probabilities has shifted over time and photographs which were previously accepted as the truthful representation of reality are re-examined for authenticity.

Winston argues that confidence in the evidential strength of the photograph was misplaced, citing the physical manipulation of objects before the photograph is taken as well as the use of lighting to allude to certain meaning within the images. Similarly, manipulation could be achieved through what is omitted from a photograph as well as what is included, and a distorted reality can be presented through varying lenses, shutter speed, aperture and angles.

Once in the darkroom, further manipulation can take place including processes to correct underexposure and other processes such as bleaching. Winston cites these examples in the context of helping reproduction of the photographs in the press, a manipulation which Life magazine permitted at the time. However, superimposing one image with another and thus producing a composite, was not allowed by the editors of Life, but was later found to have occurred on examining photographs reproduced in the magazine.

Winston argues that it would be as unwise to doubt every image now as it was previously naive to believe them. He argues that many arguments are posited on fine questions of intervention than deliberate fraud, occurring because expectations from photography as evidence, is too high. He argues that, despite the wealth of data it presents, photography at best provides only partial evidence. He cites the anthropological study, The Ax Fight (1975), as an example; titles and voice-overs are required to convey information about the time and location of the video footage. Furthermore, the voice –over and superimposed diagrams appear, at times, to comment on activities differently than how they appear on screen. Winston concludes that the viewer is relying more heavily on the photographer/commentator than would initially appear to be the case and that, as a consequence, it is this commentators interpretations which dictate how the incident is read.  However, the photographic record is too ambiguous for his to be the only reading available. Winston argues that the issue with The Ax Fight lies not with Chagnon’s commentary but with his reliance on the scientific heritage of the camera to make the strong claim that it is presenting evidence of the real world; a claim built on inference rather than on objectivity.

Winston concludes that the authenticity of the photograph is complex, arguing that within any one photographic image there is a continuum of authenticity; a complex range of relationships with the world depending in different ways and degrees on the materials and actions within the frame as well as the interventions and manipulations of the photographer. The understanding of these relationships depends on the contextual inferential walks taken by the deconstructing viewer as well as the content of the frame. This means that photographs can only be considered as evidence of the real world in complex and limited ways. For instance, truth can be seen in a photograph by moving the legitimacy of the realist image from representation (the screen or print) where nothing can be guaranteed to reception (by the viewer) where nothing need be guaranteed: a realist position. 

Winston argues that the illusion that photographs are automatic or scientific reflections of the world should be discarded and replaced by the notion that photographs provide evidence of the real world in the same way a painting or writing does. The photographer should also be acknowledged as a subjective presence. Winston argues that this is particularly important in light of advances in computer technology which makes photographic manipulation much easier; digitization enables a measure of alteration not previously possible whilst also being virtually undetectable.

Loch Discourses Project

Loch Discourses Project


Hi,

this is the final instalment of eight instalments of my loch discourses project. It is titled "Weberian Rationalisation Indoors". This instalment and the three preceding instalments strongly correlate to eachother.

Best wishes, Kim 

Weberian Rationalisation Indoors

Loch Discourses Project

Loch Discourses Project


Hi,

here is the seventh of eight instalments of my loch discourses project. It is titled "Functionalist Ideology Indoors".

Best Wishes, Kim

Functionalist Ideology Indoors

Loch Discourses Project

Loch Discourses Project


Hi,

this is the sixth of eight instalments of my loch discourses project. It is titled "Weberian Rationalisation Outdoors" and links closely with the previous instalment which was "Functionalist Ideology Outdoors".

Best wishes, Kim

Weberian Rationalisation Outdoors



Loch Discourses Project

Loch Discourses Project



Hi,

this is the fifth of eight instalments of my loch discourses project. It is titled "Functionalist Ideology Outdoors" and has much in common with "Weberian Rationalisation Outdoors" which follows on. The seating areas guide people in certain directions as well as encouraging them to sit and congregate in specific areas but in this section it was felt that the stronger theme was that of sitting rather than directional.

Best wishes, Kim 

Functionalist Ideology Outdoors



Loch Discourses Project

Loch Discourses Project

Hi,

here is the fourth of eight instalments of my loch discourses project. It is called "Educational Ideology Indoors". This category is strongly related to the others and choosing what to include and exclude was particularly difficult for this category, as stated in the introduction. Some photographs are very similar to those included in the Conservationist Ideology Indoors category, for example the solar power counter.

Best wishes, Kim

Educational Ideology Indoors

Education about conservation!

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