PHOTOGRAPHY AS METHODOLOGY

Abstract

This thesis represents a year spent trying to intellectualize photography. Yet photography defies such efforts. One can theoretically deconstruct photography but that brings one no nearer to making good pictures. On hindsight, my personal goals have contradicted my academic goals. Hence a thesis that is very much in limbo. Pushed to summarize it, I would break it into 3 parts. Part one deals with the coming of a visual age. 150 years of photography has given the world the tools for visual communication though visual literacy is still rare. Can we reach a true visual language unmediated by words? Part two uses Michel Foucault's idea of discourse to attempt a deconstruction of photography. In a sense, academic use of photography requires an awareness of the discourses. Part three criticizes previous use of photographs in theses. Three levels of using photographs are examined: Photo-illustration, Photo-interview and Photo-analysis.