About this studio

USES OF PHOTOGRAPHY 2020
Rethinking our visual literacy through photographic practice

 

‘A knowledge of photography is just as important as that of the alphabet. The illiterate of the future will be ignorant of the use of the camera and pen alike.’
László Moholy-Nagy (1923)

 

STUDIO PROMPT
How do practical and conceptual ‘uses of photography’ matter to us as contemporary media practitioners?

 

DESCRIPTION
What is a photograph now? What are some of the diverse uses to which photographs are put by both professional and non-professional image-makers in our visually- saturated cultures? How might reflexive literacies around the still image be useful for your media practice regardless of whether you aspire to be a film and television maker, social media producer, cultural critic or radio practitioner?
This studio explores these questions through repeated cycles of making, looking at, reading, thinking and talking about a range of different kinds of photography that might include portraiture, street photography, social media forms, production stills, photo books, studio-based, ethnography/ documentary, expanded photography and fine art. ‘Photography’ here is used as a descriptor for diverse technologies and practices based around communicating with light. It’s a prism for interrogating the role of visual culture in our lives. It is also a practice that changes things in the world: be it perceptions, attitudes, social relations or everyday activities.

Moholy-Nagy’s observation about the importance of photographic literacy still holds water 80 years after it was made – but it needs re-examining in the radically different context of digital and distributed online media. Today, influential pre-digital ideas about how we ‘read’ and culturally incorporate photography in our lives jostle alongside newer theories that have emerged in the internet era. Any exploration of contemporary photography needs to take account of fundamental changes in technologies, practices and contexts that have destabilized the very idea of ‘the photograph’ and photography as a practice. That uncertainty figures as a lament for some and a creative opportunity for others.
This studio will provide an opportunity for you to develop your own photographic literacy, including production and post-production skills, and investigate the usefulness of photography in enhancing your broader visual media practice.

 

STUDIO LEADER
Brian Morris has taught and researched media at a University-level for almost twenty-five years. He is currently fascinated by the intersections between media and education in formal and informal institutional contexts from Universities to YouTube. Past areas of research include urban place, identity and media technologies, television studies and cultural studies, with individual and co-written publications appearing in prominent academic journals and edited book collections. He still gets a buzz working alongside students to investigate why things in the world are the way they are and going through the demanding process of making media that communicates complex stories, ideas and emotions well.