To photograph is in some way to appropriate the object being photo-graphed. It is a power/knowledge relationship. To have visual knowledge of an object is in part to have power, even if only momentarily, over it. – John Urry in The Tourist Gaze. I picked up a book, what seemed like a bog-standard picture book,…
Tag: photography
A Landmark Photo (at least for me)
After a decade or so of wrestling myself over the use of the cellphone camera, in place of an actual camera, I passed something of a landmark in June. I had a photograph published, accompanying a short essay about maritime trade/boat-building in South East Asia. The picture was made with an iPhone. I have had…
Seeing what may come from a photograph
This is a very ordinary, everyday scene in a building.
First Digital Photographic Expedition
I set out a few weeks ago to give photography another try. I had sold the last of my film equipment, my beloved Nikon F5 almost two decades ago, and bought an entry-level digital camera. My work as a writer, an academic and in policy-making had made it difficult to fully embrace photography to the…
Photograph: Parts of a Staircase
Instant photos on a roll
I finally made time to sort out, and find a way to use and display, some of the instant pics I made with the Leica Sofort instant camera. The pictures are stuck on a till roll, it’s not a very original arrangement, and a bit clumsy, but I had fun. I bought the camera a…
The Hill of the Skull: A brief commentary and notes about a photo essay
The Hill of the Skull is a book-length photo-essay by Jeremy Bassetti, a “writer, photographer and educator,” and Professor at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida in the USA. With the text and photographs, Bassetti tracks his journey to a sacred mountain in Quillacollo, Bolivia as part of his academic research on mountain cultures, ostensibly to get an understanding of…