MA Photographic History and Practice 6 December 2009 Damian Hughes (Student No
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DMU: MA Photographic History and Practice 6 December 2009 Damian Hughes (Student No. 09282275) RESEARCH METHODS ASSIGNMENT The Art of the Participant Observer: The ethnographic impulse in Tom Wood’s photography. ABSTRACT Titian Mother stands as representative of Tom wood’s photography. Over thirty years, Tom Wood has sought to understand and to describe the people and place of New Brighton and Liverpool, describing always from a public and highly visible vantage point – returning repeatedly to photograph in the same locations, often photographing the same people. Wood resists social documentary descriptions of his work, preferring to characterise what he does as simply ‘recording’ what is in front of the camera. This paper discusses the implications of this stance in relation to Wood’s photography. It explores the work in a range of contexts which, together, provide a fuller understanding of Wood’s work as ethnographic in character, whilst remaining visually and aesthetically reliant upon a number of identifiable strands in the history of photographic practice and more broadly referential of Wood’s experience and knowledge of Western painting. The discussion identifies the strands, in Wood’s work, of early social documentary photography, from John Thomson in late nineteenth century London and Lewis Hine in early twentieth century New York onwards, and of British ‘street’ photography from Bill Brandt to the present day. Attention is also drawn to a lineage of ethnographic photography, discerning connections between early anthropological imagery, the portraiture of August Sander, the photography of Mass Observation and contemporary ethnographic studies, finding stylistic markers of all these in Tom Wood’s photographs. In particular, the paper discusses a central notion of ethnographic methodology – that of participant observation – as a model for Tom wood’s working practice and the engaged intimacy of the resulting work, whilst retaining awareness of key cultural and visual (pre)conceptions - including Wood’s Irish immigrant background, his education as an artist and painter and received notions of northern English character - by which the work may be informed. 1 DMU: MA Photographic History and Practice 6 December 2009 Damian Hughes (Student No. 09282275) RESEARCH METHODS ASSIGNMENT Bibliography Books Baker, Shirley. Streets & Spaces: Urban Photography. Salford: Lowry Press, 2000. Bernard, H. Russell. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. 4th ed. Lanham, MD ; Oxford: AltaMira Press, 2006. Collier, John, and Malcolm Collier. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Rev. and expanded ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986. Dikkers, Jan-Willem. "Interview with Tom Wood." Issue Magazine no. 8 (2004). Dimock, G. "Children of the Mills: Re-Reading Lewis Hine's Child-Labour Photographs." Oxford Art Journal 16, no. 2 (1993) (1993): pp. 37-54. Ehland, Christopher. "Northern England and the Spaces of Identity." In Thinking Northern: Textures of Identity in the North of England, edited by Christopher Ehland, 15-29. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Edwards, Elizabeth. "Introduction." In Anthropology and Photography, 1860-1920, edited by Elizabeth Edwards, pp.3-17. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Royal Anthropological Institute, London, 1992. Fletcher, Jane. "Making Sense." Issue Magazine no. 8 (2004). Grant, Ken. "Tom Wood Photieman." Foto8 4, no. 2 (2005). Guimond, James. American Photography and the American Dream. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Hamilton, Peter. "Representing the Social: France and Frenchness in Post-War Humanist Photography." In Representation : Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, edited by Stuart Hall and Open University., pp. 75-150. London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage in association with the Open University, 1997. Honnef, Klaus. "Tom Wood: People." Katalog (Denmark) 12, no. no. 1, Spring 2000 (2000): pp. 27- 31. Kisters, Jurgen. "Sad Beautiful Life." In Tom Wood: People, edited by Tom Wood, Thomas Zander and Jurgen Kisters, 89-93. Koln: Wienand, 1999. Kohl, Stephan. "The 'North' of 'England': A Paradox?" In Thinking Northern: Textures of Identity in the North of England, edited by Christopher Ehland, 93-115. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Kouwenhoven, Bill. ""Photie-Man"." European Photography 26, no. no.78 (2005): pp. 71-73. Parr, Martin, and Ian Walker. The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton. Stockport: Dewi Lewis Pub. 1998, 1986. Pinney, Christopher. "The Parallel Histories of Anthropology and Photography." In Anthropology and Photography, 1860-1920, edited by Elizabeth Edwards, xi, 275 p. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Royal Anthropological Institute, London, 1992. 2 DMU: MA Photographic History and Practice 6 December 2009 Damian Hughes (Student No. 09282275) RESEARCH METHODS ASSIGNMENT Price, Derrick. "Surveyors and Surveyed: Photography out and About." In Photography : A Critical Introduction, edited by Liz Wells, pp. 65-112. London ; New York: Routledge, 2004. Russell, Dave. Looking North: Northern England and the National Imagination. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. Sander, August. "Photography as a Universal Language." In Photography: Current Perspectives, edited by Jerome Liebling. Rochester, N.Y: Light Impressions Corp, 1978. Sander, August, Gerd Sander, August Sander Archiv., Stadtsparkasse Köln. Kulturstiftung., and National Portrait Gallery (Great Britain). August Sander : "In Photography There Are No Unexplained Shadows!" : An Exhibition Organised by the August Sander Archive, Kulturstiftung Stadtsparkasse, Cologne, and Shown at the National Portrait Gallery, London. London: National Portrait Gallery, 1996. Schwabsky, Barry. "Tom Wood - Brief Article." Artforum International Magazine (2000). Scott, Clive. Street Photography: From Atget to Cartier-Bresson. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007. Smith, Greg and Ball, Mike. "Technologies of Realism? Ethnographic Uses of Photography and Film." In Handbook of Ethnography, edited by Paul Atkinson, pp. 302-20. London: SAGE, 2001. Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. "Who Speaks Thus? Some Questions About Documentary Photography." In Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions and Practices, 170-82. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press ; London: Oxford University Press, 1991. Stanley, Liz. "Mass-Observation's Fieldwork Methods." In Handbook of Ethnography, edited by Paul Atkinson, pp. 92-108. London: SAGE, 2001. Spender, Humphrey. Worktown People: Photographs from Northern England 1937-38. Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1982. Thomson, J. fl, and Adolphe Smith. Street Life in London. Wakefield: E.P. Publishing, 1973. Timoney, Padraig. "Tom Wood." Frieze Magazine no. 44 (1999). Tonnies, M. "Constructing an Emblematic Northern Space under Thatcherism: The New Brighton Photographs of Martin Parr and Tom Wood." In Thinking Northern: Textures of Identity in the North of England, edited by Christoph Ehland, 305-24. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Vanhaelen, Angela. "Street Life in London and the Organization of Labour." History of Photography 26, no. 3 (Autumn 2002) (2002): 191-204. Vestburg, Nina Lager. "Shooting in the Street." History of Photography 32, no. 2 (Summer 2008) (2008): 203-4. von Amelunxen, Hubertus. "Tom Wood: Lob Des Zweifels [Tom Wood: Praise of the Doubt]." Eikon (Austria) no. no. 32 (2000): pp. 16-23. Walker, Ian May. So Exotic, So Homemade: Surrealism, Englishness and Documentary Photography. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. Weinberger, E. "The Camera People." In Visualizing Theory: Selected Essays from V.A.R., 1990- 1994, edited by Lucien Taylor, xix,473p. New York ; London: Routledge, 1994. Westerbeck, Colin, and Joel Meyerowitz. Bystander: A History of Street Photography: With a New Afterword on Street Photography since the 1970's. 1st pbk. ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 2001. 3 DMU: MA Photographic History and Practice 6 December 2009 Damian Hughes (Student No. 09282275) RESEARCH METHODS ASSIGNMENT Wigoder, M. "Some Thoughts About Street Photography and the Everyday." History of Photography 25, no. 4 (Winter 2001) (2001): 368-78. Wood, Tom. Looking for Love: Photographs from Chelsea Reach Nightclub, New Brighton, Merseyside. Manchester: Cornerhouse, 1989. Wood, Tom. All Zones Off Peak. Stockport: Dewi Lewis, 1998. Wood, Tom, and Manfred Heiting. Tom Wood: Photie Man. Göttingen ; [Great Britain]: Steidl, 2005. Wood, Tom, Thomas Zander, and Jurgen Kisters. Tom Wood: People. Koln: Wienand, 1999. Zander, Thomas. "The Realism of Small Things." In Tom Wood: People, edited by Tom Wood, Thomas Zander and Jurgen Kisters, 95. Koln: Wienand, 1999. Further Reading Atkinson, Paul. Handbook of Ethnography. London: SAGE, 2001. Edwards, Elizabeth. Raw Histories: Photographs, Anthropology and Museums. Materializing Culture. Oxford: Berg, 2001. Jay, Bill. "The Romantic Machine." In Photography: Current Perspectives, edited by Jerome Liebling, pp.19-34. Rochester, N.Y: Light Impressions Corp, 1978. Rapport, Nigel, and Joanna Overing. Social and Cultural Anthropology: The Key Concepts. 2nd ed. ed. London: Routledge, 2007. Roberts, John. The Art of Interruption: Realism, Photography, and the Everyday, The Critical Image. Manchester: Manchester Universtiy Press, 1998. Rosman, Abraham, and Paula G. Rubel. The Tapestry of Culture: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. 8th ed. ed. Boston, Mass.; London: McGraw-Hill, 2004. Rosler, Martha. "In, around, and Afterthoughts (on Documentary Photography)." In The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography, edited by Richard Bolton, 303-42. Cambridge, Mass. ; London: MIT, 1989. Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. "Who Speaks Thus? Some Questions About Documentary Photography." In Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions and Practices, 170-82. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press ; London: Oxford University Press, 1991. Wells, Liz. Photography: A Critical Introduction. 3rd ed. London ; New York: Routledge, 2004. 4 .