{"id":8764,"date":"2020-11-09T11:46:05","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T11:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/?p=8764"},"modified":"2026-02-12T20:31:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T19:31:27","slug":"u3ac-2020-21-photography-the-telling-image-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/u3ac-2020-21-photography-the-telling-image-1\/","title":{"rendered":"U3AC 2020-21 Photography: The Telling Image 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In autumn 2019 J… and I ran a course, Photography: The Telling Image<\/em>, for the Cambridge U3A, see post 13th December 2019.\u00a0 We are repeating it this year, though as a series of five on-line modules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course looks at photography as: an aid to seeing; a means of engagement with society, in its widest sense; a shaper and creator of self and identity; an art form; and a conveyor of both ambiguity and veracity.  It is built as a narrative about photography and there will be recurrent themes and subjects linking the five sessions.  We hope to show that people as individuals are changed by what they see, and are changed when they are seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the course is being presented on-line in a series of modules to be read in people\u2019s own time, there is no scope for direct discussion.  Participants are e-mailing comments to me and I\u2019m attempting brief responses.  Here are some edited highlights and my responses on issues raised by Module 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: Cartier Bresson’s picture from, Seville, Spain – the image through the hole in the wall creates the impression of a voyeur witnessing a private incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BH: Yes, we should indeed think about whether this type of photography is justifiable, either as an exploration of the human condition or as the creation of a work of art or both.  Perhaps the key tests are the intention of the photographer and the way the image is used.  The rights of the individual to refuse to be photographed in public places and the ownership of any images created are matters for debate that will not go away.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CA: Among the interesting questions raised is that regarding the documentation of cultures, which can be seen negatively as the presentation of \u2018specimens\u2019 or very positively as vital records of those cultures if they are threatened – and of course of environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MM: Re the John Thomson photograph, 1873\/74, Canton: ‘people became exotic specimens to capture and bring home’. Sadly I’m sometimes still guilty of this in my own travel photography, though hopefully not unknowingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BH: There is much in past approaches to photography of the \u2018other\u2019 that still resonates today.   We may all be guilty of this to some degree, but again there is the question of intention, see above. If the aim is to somehow understand the subject that may be more acceptable than just treating him or her as a curiosity.  The work of even those photographers who approach their calling with the greatest integrity, like Sebastiao Salgado, cannot avoid scrutiny in these terms.  This aspect of representation, of how we see the world, taps into current debates about colonialisation, cultural appropriation and how museums and galleries approach the \u2018other\u2019 and historical narratives. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

KB: My husband and I recently took on each of our parents\u2019 family photos going right back to great grandparents and even great great. It’s been fascinating to look beyond just identifying people but looking at context and understanding what was happening in their lives at the time the photo was taken. With the family history photos those taken around the time of WW1 are intriguing. One, of an army tent in Africa with Great Uncle Monty (killed a few weeks later) and his friends who all enlisted together, is poignant as they had also labelled the tent The Load of Mischief, after the family village pub!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BH: Yes, family photos can take us back to as far as the 1840s if we are very lucky, certainly to the 1860s and 70s. It\u2019s illuminating and fascinating to look beyond just identifying people to studying the context, such as location and dress, and try to understand what was happening in their lives at the time the photograph was taken. Words, stories, are important too: a major challenge is to keep the words and pictures together, without them the meaning of the photographs becomes increasingly obscure.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Seville, Spain, Henri Cartier-Bresson,1933<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Physic Street, Canton, John Thompson, c.1873-74<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Mud Man, Papua New Guinea, Sebastiao Salgado, 2008<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In autumn 2019 J… and I ran a course, Photography: The Telling Image, for the Cambridge U3A, see post 13th December 2019.\u00a0 We are repeating it this year, though as a series of five on-line modules. The course looks at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-u3ac-photography-courses","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9SdXd-2hm","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14718,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8764\/revisions\/14718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianhuman.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}