Results tagged “photoethnography” from Photoethnography.com Blog

NYLUG '10: Colloquium in Photography

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Photoethnography, Visual Anthropology, and the Leica

The invention of the first Leica camera in 1913 ushered in new
possibilities for naturalistic photography. Heavy tripod-mounted
wooden cameras could be replaced by Oskar Barnack’s pocketable little
brass wonder. Dozens of bulky film plates could be exchanged for a
single interchangeable film cartridge. New vistas for street and
field photography were opened up. Anthropologists were early adopters
of this technology to bring back images from across the world. It is
remarkable that almost a hundred years later we are still using the
same film in much the same film cartridge that Oskar Barnack
originally developed.

Karen Nakamura is a cultural and visual anthropologist of Japan.
An assistant professor of anthropology at Yale University, she has
written an award-winning ethnography titled Deaf in Japan. She is
known as the creator of the website Photoethnography.com and has also
filmed and edited two ethnographic films.

In this presentation, Karen will be talking about how the history of
visual anthropology, how she uses her Leica cameras in her fieldwork,
and share some of the photographs that she has taken in Japan,
Malaysia, China, and the United States.

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Place:
School of the International Center of Photography
1114 Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue and 43rd Street)
New York City

Date and Time:
Saturday, May 22 at 5:30PM

For more information: http://leica-users.org/v44/msg10526.html

I'm very pleased to welcome a new guest blogger on Photoethnography.com, Jason C Romero. Many of you have already seen his comments on this blog, or read material that he sent my way. I'm very happy that he agreed to become a guest author and I personally look forward to seeing his posts!

Global Compassion is running a series of photographs from:

Masaru Goto is a highly regarded Japanese photographer known for his compassionate documentary work “highlighting the plight and resilience of ordinary people caught in conflicts, suffering under oppression, or economically disadvantaged.’

This exhibition is entitled “NIHONJIN, BURAKUMIN: Portraits of Japan’s outcast people.”

You can see the exhibit here: http://www.globalcompassion.com/2008/05/19/masaru-goto/

I recently wrote a short article for the Anthropology News titled: A Case against Giving Informants Cameras and Coming Back Weeks Later (. Vol. 49, No. 2: 20). Here is a snippet to whet your appetite:

A Case Against Giving Informants Cameras and Coming Back Weeks Later
By Karen Nakamura (Yale U)

Giving informants cameras and asking them to take photographs of their environment is a growing trend in anthropology. The resulting photos are later displayed, analyzed or exhibited as examples of a particularly internal, private or emic view of the world. Students love this technique, which is inexpensive and initially appears to be risk-free, with all of the hallmarks of reflexive anthropology. If not done carefully, however, it can be problematic both ethically and methodologically.

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For those who choose to do photoethnographic work that involves providing informants with cameras or video equipment, it is essential to first critically examine the ethical and methodological implications of a project. The anthropologist must consider both the potential harms and benefits that a project might pose for an informant. Possible ways to address these concerns include giving informants high quality photographic equipment (to keep) as well as technical training, so that in the future they can use their new tools and skills for their own purposes, to address their own needs. Informants working for an anthropologists (i.e. completing assigned tasks) should be paid as field assistants. Prior to using an image an anthropologist should receive permission to do so from both the photographer and any people that appear in the photograph. Finally, photography should supplement, not replace, long-term fieldwork–it is time and labor intensive, but ultimately necessary for interpreting and contextualizing visual images from the field.

You can read the rest at the full text PDF.

Comments, criticism, and feedback on this article are more than welcome -- either here or by e-mail.