Research in Photography - Dr Graham Wilson
Research in Photography Dr Graham Wilson To many people ‘education’ means ‘teaching’, and there are certainly a vast number of ‘taught’ photography courses in the UK and elsewhere, both online and offline. While there are some higher and further education institutions where the predominant activity is teaching, the older universities and a growing number of the newer ones also have a strong commitment to ‘research’. It is a widely held belief that the quality of the teaching in a university will be better if the lecturers are also engaged in research, and this is as true of photography as any other discipline. What then does ‘research’ look like in a photographic context? As David Bate, Professor of Photography at the University of Westminster, explains; “All photographers already do research whether its technical, historical, theoretical etc. It is part of the job. I don't know any photographer who doesn't.” The importance of this research skill is emphasised by Prof Simon Standing, Associate Head of the School of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Plymouth; “Photography can engage with any facet of society and, due to its ability to engage an audience through a universal language - visual representation - it has a powerful role to play in helping us understand the world around us, to engage us in questioning our fundamental knowledge of the world, and to present alternative perspectives to those of other disciplines.” In academic settings, students learn to do this kind of subject-, issue-, or causerelated ‘applied research’; it is an essential skill that is rarely taught in the largely practical courses that many photographers attend or subscribe to. Nevertheless, even at GCSE-level the foundations of this kind of research are laid. However, ‘academic research’ goes beyond this by adding to the body of knowledge of a discipline (in our case, photography) and, hopefully, moves it forwards. After a period in which many technical developments began in commercial organisations (especially within camera manufacturers) or else quickly moved there from academic research laboratories, there is a new demand for innovative technologies. David Bate suggests; “Technically the integration of photography to computing machines, automation etc, means a different framework and context for thinking about photographic images - this cannot be ignored.” There is still scope for ‘pure research’ to explore the underlying tenets of the discipline. For instance, using a psychological approach to study the different 56
