Thinking, Photographing: A Place-based Approach in Practice-led Research
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53450/2179-1465.RG.2022v13i2p46-58Keywords:
Methodology, Photography, Place-based, Place-making, Practice-ledAbstract
The article introduces photography practice as a practice-led research methodology, highlighting photographic conventions and methods as key research approaches. To illustrate these ideas I will foreground examples of my photography practice and other practitioners’. My focus is on research that explores place-based topics in which photography plays the role of generating thinking and place-making.
The article positions photography as a complete practice-led research methodology within the academy, contextualising key historical practices and moments in order to propose an expanded model of place representation. I will trace the advancements of photography and its uses during the colonial period, the introduction to landscape and later the progression into tourism photography. As a counter approach to these frameworks, I propose a more nuanced iterative model of place representation capable of rendering multiple place imaginaries. This allows visual artists, practice-led researchers and ethnographers to expand existing research agendas and methodological approaches to place and place-making.
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