Digital Photography and Everyday Life

Empirical Studies on Material Visual Practices

Edgar Gómez Cruz, Asko Lehmuskallio, Edgar Gómez Cruz, Asko Lehmuskallio

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317447771
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Digital Photography and Everyday Life: Empirical studies on material visual practices explores the role that digital photography plays within everyday life.

With contributors from ten different countries and backgrounds in a range of academic disciplines - including anthropology, media studies and visual culture - this collection takes a uniquely broad perspective on photography by situating the image-making process in wider discussions on the materiality and visuality of photographic practices and explores these through empirical case studies.

By focusing on material visual practices, the book presents a comprehensive overview of some of the main challenges digital photography is bringing to everyday life. It explores how the digitization of photography has a wide-reaching impact on the use of the medium, as well as on the kinds of images that can be produced and the ways in which camera technology is developed. The exploration goes beyond mere images to think about cameras, mediations and technologies as key elements in the development of visual digital cultures.

Digital Photography and Everyday Life will be of great interest to students and scholars of Photography, Contemporary Art, Visual Culture and Media Studies, as well as those studying Communication, Cultural Anthropology, and Science and Technology Studies.

Part III Camera as the extension of the photographer

12 Exploring everyday photographic routines through the habit of noticing

Eve Forrest

DOI: 10.4324/9781315696768-12

Prologue

The first time it happened to me was whilst I was out with a group of photographers on a quiet Sunday morning; the city streets of Newcastle-upon-Tyne were deserted. I was feeling uninspired even though I had two cameras with me: a newly purchased toy Holga and my trusted 40-year-old Pentax which I wore around my neck. Looking around me, I could see little that I thought was worth photographing. However, one of the photographers beside me suddenly stopped still, then, crouched down. I observed them at work as they moved around: making micro adjustments to their feet, fingers, shoulders and head movements, getting their body in the best position to take the picture. They lingered over what they had seen for a full five minutes taking a variety of different pictures. This episode proved not to be unusual that day: in the few hours I spent with the group, the same thing happened numerous times with other photographers. Despite standing in close proximity to them, what had grabbed their attention had passed me by completely unnoticed. My camera was little used that day and my notebook had one loose scribble underlined: why can’t I see the same way as them and when do photographers start seeing things?

Introduction – what catches the thread?

Often, when discussions turn to describing the creative process, it is said that something can catch the imagination, much like when the singular thread from a scarf snags itself on a nail and begins to unwind itself from its tight weave. In much the same way, imaginative thoughts are pulled through and out of the front of our consciousness, housed deep within the varied interlacing routines of everyday thoughts. As Abraham, McKenna and Sheldrake (2001 p. 36) attest ‘motivations in the ordinary psychological sense are not pushing from behind but pulling from ahead … somehow the system … is subject in the present to the influence of a potential future state that hasn’t yet come into being’. Quite unexpectedly, something or someone can catch the attention. When this happens, the notional thread can only be grasped and, if desired, the holder follows the potential trail wherever it can lead.

Many have asked, in the course of my fieldwork, what separates a photographer from a person who just carries a camera? What is the nature of that label? It is a difficult weave to unpick. Having spoken with numerous photographers over the course of many years, the common theme in each conversation was the transformative powers of carrying and using a camera every day, be that film, digital or on a mobile phone. They remarked on how they saw the world differently, markedly so from the others around them that did not habitually take photographs. They also noted that after prolonged use, even when they did not take a camera with them, they still saw potential photographs everywhere within their environment. Thanks to the presence of the camera, the imagination of the photographer is often unravelling, on any possible number of everyday hooks.

This chapter gives consideration to how and why this particular kind of imaginative process, or what I term here noticing strategies, happens. The phenomenon of noticing is first discussed by David Seamon (1979) in his seminal work Geography of the Lifeworld. Seamon (2000, p. 161) later on writes that ‘it is impossible to ask whether person makes world or world makes person because both exist always together and can only be correctly interpreted in terms of the holistic relationship, being-in-world.’ Using Lifeworld as the primary touchstone I will consider the core experiential qualities of photography practice and discover, phenomenologically speaking, how the photographer and their being-in-the-world is affected by the presence of the camera. This work draws from other disciplines too, that whilst initially appearing to be unconnected, are tied together by what could be loosely bracketed as phenomenological threads. The anthropologist Tim Ingold and his ideas on perception (2000) and movement (2008) within everyday life are used to consider noticing strategies online. The work of Terence McKenna, ‘anarchist metaphysician’ (St John 2011, p. 207) is also worthy of further exploration here, more specifically his work relating to creative consciousness and ontology within everyday life.

The hitherto mentioned conversations were part of a longitudinal ethnographic study of photographers based in North-East England, more specifically, the cities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sunderland. The photographers came from a variety of backgrounds and ages: the only links were geographical location and Flickr, from which they were all enlisted. The photographers presented a mix of abilities (although the traditional labels of amateur and professional, I would argue, are largely outmoded on Flickr and other photography platforms: see Forrest 2013). Often it is now difficult to tell between the quality and styles of images that used to make differentiation more straightforward. I interviewed more than 20 photographers in various locations, both online and face-to-face.¹ At least half of these photographers were then accompanied on an hour-long ‘walk and talk’ around their local cities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sunderland. This approach, also known as the guided tour technique, has its roots in what could be widely described as a phenomenological attitude towards thinking about everyday practices such as photography, giving opportunity for the researcher to ‘observe their informants’ spatial practices in situ while accessing their experiences and interpretations at the same time’ (Kusenbach 2003, p. 463). This method emphasizes the ‘call to lived experience’ (Landau 2004, p. 111) of the photographer, rather than the images they produce, meaning a fuller exploration of the multifarious doings of everyday photography, are made possible.

Geography of the Lifeworld

Whilst Geography of the Lifeworld (referred to hereafter as GOL) has been utilized by a few authors in diverse areas such as urban planning (Wunderlich 2008) and media studies (Moores 2006, 2012; Moores & Metykova 2010) the work is still relatively unknown and underused. It is therefore worthwhile briefly outlining the pertinent themes of GOL and how they relate to photography practice. GOL is a study of the everyday complexities ‘and inescapable immersion in the geographical world’ (Seamon 1979, p. 15) via the ‘body ballet’, a set of integrated gestures, behaviours and actions that sustain a particular task or aim (Seamon 2006). These different forms of gestures and actions connect with the practice approach, as outlined by Lehmuskallio and Gómez Cruz in the introduction to this volume. They argue that the visual is more than representation alone. Practice theory facilitates an exploration into the various routine performances and communicative actions with a camera: a particular dance set to the rhythm of everyday life.

Seamon particularly underlines the impact of habit, drawing attention to factors that structure these various interactions. The distinctive approach of the original text was based in a branch of human geography that came to prominence in the mid-to-late 1970s, through authors such as Relph (1976) and Tuan (1977), which ‘shifted analytical focus from social space to lived-in place, seeking to supplant the “people-less” geographies of positivist spatial science with an approach that fed off alternative philosophies – notably existentialism and phenomenology’ (Hubbard 2005, p. 42). Seamon particularly utilized the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty to investigate these everyday actions up close, in relation to the body-subject. Using the technique of themed ‘environmental experience groups’ he asked his participants to think and observe their patterns of movement and habits in their everyday environments via a theme assigned to them each week. Moores (2006) summarizes that ‘Seamon’s groups can therefore be thought of, in a certain sense, as having engaged in consciousness-raising … through the expression of at least some of these tacitly known things that enable the skilful accomplishment of everyday practices’. It is through the outcomes of these group meetings that Seamon persuasively argues that our relationships with place and habitual routines are highly complex and not merely a symptom of automatic reinforcement or a condition of set thought processes. Instead, Seamon (1979, p. 40) believes that everyday interaction and movement ‘arises from the body’ which is ‘at the root of habitual movement’ (p. 41). Seamon (p. 55) describes the nature of the everyday body ballet, stating ‘Basic bodily movements fuse together … through training and practice. Simple hand, leg and trunk movements become attuned to a particular line of work or action and direct themselves spontaneously to meet the need at hand.’

The metaphor of dance is particularly useful for thinking about how photographers can vary their everyday movements. When out in groups they waltz in-between one another, so as not to disrupt the image taking of others. Often, of course, they dance solo and, depending on the camera used, they do not just use their feet. They bring their eye close to the viewfinder or hold the screen at arm’s length, stretching their muscles out or pulling their elbows in tightly to their body. Even when they are ‘still’ and watching the world with the camera in hand, they continue to make micro adjustments with their weight, shifting from one foot to the other. Sometimes they even go en-pointe, tip-toeing around their subject to gain a better perspective.

These actions, which can be viewed as part of a complex interlacing between body and camera, are being further advanced by new technologies and hardware. Where cameras used to be extensions of the hand and eye, they can now also be integrated into the body through various wearable means, such as clips, mounts and harnesses on the chest (for example GoPro cameras and accessories and the Apple iWatch). Photography practices have, then, become both embodied and an embedded part of everyday life (see Favero, this volume).

One strand of this intricate, embodied ballet is highlighted in Chapter 14, which Seamon (1979, p. 108) names ‘Noticing and Heightened contact’. He defines noticing in the following way, ‘A thing from which we were insulated a moment before flashes to our attention. Noticing is self-grounded or world grounded … Incongruity, surprise, contrast and attractiveness (or its opposite unattractiveness) are all characteristics that activate world-grounded noticing.’ Whilst Seamon does not specifically tie noticing to image-making practices, I wish to demonstrate, throughout this chapter, that his definition, above, of the particular experiential qualities of noticing, aligns closely with that of the photographer. Importantly, the only instance when photography is mentioned anywhere in GOL is in the context of noticing. Seamon (ibid., p. 109) writes that

One group member, pleased with the photographs he had done, spent an entire afternoon taking more pictures. ‘I was noticing more than I usually do’, he said ‘and it had something to do with the fact that the photographs had come out so well.’

Before moving on to wider discussions on everyday photography, it is interesting, here, to consider the other area that Seamon associates with noticing: heightened contact, particularly in the context of Terence McKenna’s statement that more attention should be paid to the ‘felt presence of direct experience’ within everyday life (McKenna 2012). The unmistakeable transcendental tone of the language Seamon uses in this chapter has more in common with that of McKenna (1991, 1999) and his psychedelic, spiritual and ecological explorations. Seamon (1979, pp. 111–112) notes that through heightened contact ‘a feeling of peace and harmony with the world’ is possible, that participants noted that everything ‘feels more real’ in that state of mind and that the person ‘feels joined and akin to the world’. This also echoes the writing of Graham St John (2004, p. 21) who, in his exploration of raving, quotes Spurgeon noting that the space of the dance floor becomes ‘the space of “awakening … [raving] is an experience that amounts to rapture”’. In a similar way, Seamon argues that heightened contact involves ‘the physical environment beyond the person’ (1979, p. 113).

All these aspects are pertinent to discussions relating to everyday photography, particularly the unfolding of movement and space within the urban environment and how photographers engage and reflect on their everyday surroundings. It is worth noting here, too, that the type of equipment used (for example a phone or DSLR camera) as well as the publishing platform that photographers decide to put their photographs on to (such as Flickr or Facebook) may also impact on the different noticing strategies of photographers and, perhaps, with different results, that are discussed within this chap...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Why material visual practices?
• I Variance in use in everyday photography
• II Cameras, connectivity and transformed localities
• III Camera as the extension of the photographer
• Index