Photographic Capacity

I don't do photography, I do life photographically. Realizing that was an important transition for me in my photography as it helped me to see that photography was a tactical level capacity rather than a main occupational focus. There are people who do photography as an occupation, but I am not one of them.

At this point, photography breaks down into two major components:

1. still photography related to issues of meaning and substance
2. video based motion picture related to issues of empowerment and community development.

Still Photography Work

In the academic world of the University, the Social Sciences generally prefer to emphasize the objective side of reality, whereas the Humanities prefer to emphasize the subjective side. Photography, which simultaneously straddles both subjective and objective domains by its very nature, reflects almost exactly, where I am situated vis-a-vis these two academic knowledge domains.

Photography is objective in that it is the recording of an image made up of light reflected off concrete objects and/or entering the camera lens directly from a light emitting body. Although the operational range of photography and the optical flexibility of a camera are not identical to that of the eye, a skilled operator can bring the recorded image on film to an amazingly close approximation of the experiential intent of the eye and mind by making certain specific reconciling adjustments, as Ansel Adams and others so aptly demonstrated.

As the qualitative researchers like to point out, there is a subjective and an objective side to all research, and therefore in the knowledge which emerges from such research, especially in the Social Sciences. Over the years, photography has been used by people within the Social Sciences capture research data, for analysis and (re-)presentation. Research which uses the camera as a data-collecting tool, results in a mix of objective data, and what many would view as a contaminating subjective data as well. For example, when a photographer enters a scene with a camera, his or her presence affects the people on the scene, who start to behave in ways they would not behave if the camera were not present. Even if the camera is hidden, there is still a subjective element present in the results because somebody decided where to locate the camera; chose what it would be focused on and what would be excluded from the shot; and decided either when to turn on the camera or when to make the editing cut in the finished product. Researchers are always interactive with their human subjects at all stages of their so-called "objective" research.

To me all social science research is "objective" not because I feel it can be done without subjective contamination. Rather, I believe that this "subjective-objective contaminated research package" is the research package, and my "subjective component has a totally different source - The Humanities. Further, the subjective element in my photography is not some spurious bit of contamination to be minimized. Far from it. The subjective element in my photographs is deliberately introduced as an intentional dimension of my picture. I stand with one foot in each of the two great domains of knowledge in the University academic life : Social Sciences and Humanities. The Social Sciences are the basis of the "objective" side of my photographs (in all their contaminated glory) and the Humanities are the basis of the "subjective" side of my photographs (with all their intentionally introduced subjectivity).

There is a deliberately introduced element of subjectivity in my photographs, but my photographs are not entirely subjective. They do not arise solely from the "primordial chaos" of the reflective, analytical subjectivity of the Humanities, but rather, they are solidly grounded in, and informed by, the relative objectivity of The Social Sciences. They are a mix, and where they meet for me is in the interdisciplinary professional occupation of Christian ministry, which, among other things, closely parallels the profession of Community Development.

For me, The Social Sciences represent and inform the objective side of my photographs, but it is the Humanities which represent and inform the subjective side of my photographs.

Video Based Motion Picture Photography

[This section of my work is being developed within a separate course and will be integrated after both courses are completed]

Further Resources