Flatcapphotography Part 2: Research Methods

RESEARCH METHODS

What this module is about.

This module introduces learners to techniques in developing research and will inform not just for the foundation degree but also for higher awards should a student wish to progress further. This module introduced key research strategies in the context of photography or photo-imaging education.
This will cover qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and their application whilst also introducing learners to key theoretical approaches, importance of ethical issues and considerations in project management and delivery.

Outcomes assessed in this assignment.

. Assess theoretical approaches to research.
. Discuss methodology and methods of research.
. Outline and report data analysis strategies.
. Identify and produce a research proposal.

Assessment criteria.

A. 1x1,500 word proposal for a subsequent research project focusing on an aspect of photography history, genre or movements.
Proposal to include project tittle, aims objectives, rationale and review of literature, methodology, consideration of access issues and ethics, predicted time for stages of the project and references. 9references do not include in the word count).
B. 1x presentation where findings are discussed in a seminar with other peers. The presentation should conclude with questions and answers.

So in all we will be studying the following topics during this module:-

. The nature of research.
. Tools and terminology of research.
. The mechanics of research - Hypotheses, research questions, literature reviews.
. Data Collection.
. Research methods.
. Plagiarism and ethics.
. Putting together a research proposal.
. Consideration of theoretical approaches to research methods.
. Techniques to review literature.
. Review of photography history as studied in module 07 contextual studies.
. Key lectures on important historical photographs that develop a students detailed historical/contemporary subject knowledge.

We are also told to go and look at various books to go along with the parameters set out in this module.

Mini research/people project.

Find subjects for your portraits which involve you approaching people or organisations with whom you are unfamiliar;

The purpose of this exercise is all of the following:
1. To help you to identify and develop contacts for yourself;
2. To get used to the protocols of introducing yourself as a photographer to potential clients / collaborators;
3. To develop your photographic people / directing skills with people you don’t know;
4. To find interesting subjects for your photography;
5. To answer a research question about a particular social group;

Places you might consider approaching could include - a residential care home; a working men’s club, the college marketing department, local sports club, local library, a workplace e.g. mechanics.
*Photographing children involves more difficult legislation – this might be too time consuming for the timescale of this project.

There needs to be an incentive for the participant – this could be a free print or similar; Remember you are representing Blackburn College if you go as a student and your conduct should help to preserve our reputation as a good photography department.

I was talking about this brief to a friend of mine and discussing the ideas that i was going to try for this mini project. I stated that i thought it might be interesting to do some photographs in one of the local gym's but that it would be hard to get access to or indeed the permission to be able to do this. He then mentioned the gym that he goes to and that they were quite photo friendly as he had taken some photographs of his son there and that i should get in touch with them and find out if it was possible to do my project there.

I went on line and decided to do a little research for this project about the place and what they offer.

After looking at the website i found out that recently it had just had 3million pound worth of investment and refurbishment.
The new facilities include :-
* The Active Zone - a FITNESS ZONE with the latest hi tech equipment for both adults and juniors to enjoy.
* The Studio - with a fantastic range of exciting and stimulating EXERCISE CLASSES for all ages and abilities.
* A 55 station, state of the art adult FITNESS SUITE managed by motivated and enthusiastic fitness instructors
* Our great 6 lane LEISURE POOL WITH WAVE MACHINE and roof high WATERSLIDE
* A variety of WATER BASED CLASSES for all ages and abilities
* An OFSTED registered CRECHE.
* Free Parking
The above information was taken from the following website:-
http://www.visitpendle.com/what-to-do/wavelengths-p112650

As my friend uses this site he arranged for me to go and see one of the managers and they were very positive about what i wanted to do and said that i could have access as long as i filled out a form containing the things that i could and could not do during my visit.

I then arranged to get two male users of the gym to give me permission to follow them round and photograph them during their workout routine at the gym.

In the form i filled out and during the conversation with the manager i made it clear that i was at university doing a people project and they stated that i could take peoples photographs if i had their permission. I told the people that i involved that the images were going to go on an on line blog and they were fine with that and had no objections about it at all. I told the two guys that i was going to shadow that they could have copies of all the images that i took and the both agreed.

On the actual day that i went to take the images i filled in another form and was told that i could only photograph the people if i had their verbal permission and that if at any time anyone in the gym objected that i would have to stop instantly what i was doing. Also i had to go around the gym and tell the users what i was doing and that i would not include them in any of my images if they did not want to be in them. This i also had to do whenever someone new arrived at the gym. It was good though as nobody objected and everyone seemed totally fine with what i was doing. I think for the two guys involved the most they told me that it was a vanity project for them and that they thought it was fun and ego building.

When i first arrived i initially started to use flash as the lighting was very mixed with lots of natural light coming in from the huge windows and then lots of florescent lighting around the gym space itself. This was a bad idea for three reasons :-
1. It gave my images really horrible shadows against the white walls in the gym.
2. It brought attention to me and it could have made people go against what i was trying to achieve.
3. I was distracting the normal gym users.
So rather quickly i took off the flash gun and altered my camera settings more to suit the strange lighting from within the gym.

Bellow are two images that i took using the flash and you can see how they just did not work and you can tell from the harsh shadows that other people might have found this distracting.

Horrible flash image 1

Horrible flash image 2

In all i took around 60 or so images and then told the people that i had photographed, that i would put all of them onto a disc and gave them each copies. All parties involved said that it had been fun and i have picked out a selection of images that i might end up using for my people brief, but it all depends on whether i can fit them into the criteria for that module.

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Image 5

Image 6

Image 7

Image 8

Image 9

Image 10

Image 11

Image 12

Image 13

I ended up being quite pleased with how some of my images turned out and indeed the overall outcome of this first little research brief. It has made me understand how important it is to branch out and go and find things to photograph that is out of my normal comfort zone. The more we do this kind of thing the more we learn about different areas of photography and the more contacts we can then gain and by networking ourselves.

      DIFFERENT FORMS OF RESEARCH THAT I HAVE COME ACROSS THIS YEAR

                                                 BOOKS THAT I AHVE BOUGHT

These were all purchased over the last 6 months

The Photo Book by Phaidon
The Complete Photographer by Tom Ang
The Landscape Photography Bible by Tony Worobiec
Elements 10 For Photographers by Philip Andrews
Lightroom 3 book for digital photographers by Scott Kelby
Photographing People by Roderick Macmillan
The Complete Digital Photo Manual by Carlton
Nikon D7000 From Snapshots To Great Shots by John Batdorff
50 Photo Icons by Hans-Michael Koetzle
Like You've Never Been Away by Paul Trevor
The Photographers Guide To Light by John Freeman

                                               THE GENIUS OF PHOTOGRAPHY

  I have found this series to be utterly informative and a great way to research different aspects of photography. From the start of photography at around 1839 and the important people involved at its humble beginnings such as Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre right up until modern photography. It is pact full of information and they also have a website that goes with this BBC series. I have put the link below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/

"In the course of our 170 year relationship, photography has delighted us, served us, moved us, outraged us and occasionally disappointed us. But mainly, it has intrigued us by showing the secret strangeness that lies beneath the world of appearances. And that is photography's true genius.

Follow the story of photography in BBC Four's six-part series 'The Genius of Photography'. See some of the most famous photographs ever taken and find out more about what made them so very special".
The above passage was taken from the website mentioned above.

                                               BEHIND THE IMAGE BOOK

This book is part of a series of books in AVA'S Academia's basics. It deals with research and how to go about it. It contains information on the following topics and is a great resource within itself :-

A research proposal
Archives
Audience and context
Compiling your research
Editing
Evaluation
Final production
Keeping a workbook
Planning
Practise and research
Putting research into context
Research and practise
Starting your own blog
Street photography
Studios
The impact of research
The Internet
Where to do research

It guide us through a different range of tools and ideas to help us with research. I found this to be of extreme help during my proposal planning.

                                                                WIKIPEDIA

The one thing that we must remember when using Wikipedia is that not all things on this site are accurate or true due to the nature of anybody being able to upload information or change details withing the site. If used correctly though it can be a great starting point with links to other reputable sites.
http://www.wikipedia.org/

                                                                   ARCHIVES

This can be a good place to use for research whether they are on line or physical archives from various sources. They tend to vary in scale and source but all are useful for different reasons.
Below are a couple of good on line archives that could be a first port of call for any project.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
http://archive.org/index.php
http://www.archives.org.uk/
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/

                                                DOCUMENTARY TV CHANNELS

There are many TV channels dedicated to documentaries. These can be a very productive way of gathering information due to the fact that what you are watching has already been well researched before being shown. One of the more reputable stations is The National Geographic channel. It is escpecially good for researching things to do with photography.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/
Other sites worth considering are listed below.
http://www.history.com/
http://www.documentarychannel.com/

                                                                     iTUNES U

This was something that i had not heard of before until Katy mentioned it. After looking at it i found it to be one of the most useful places of sources of information and research material. The site contains information from nearly all courses within the UK and their resources from university centres. In fact its brilliant.
http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/

                                                            KINDLE FREE BOOKS

This is limited but there are a couple of books that could be used for the practise of research that are free from the Amazon on line download book store.

SELF EXPLANATORY BUT WORTH NOTING

THE LOCAL LIBRARY
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICES
OTHER ON LINE SITES NOT MENTIONED
FILMS
UNIVERSITY MOODLE PAGES
TED TALKS TV
ADOBE TV

                                                      MY RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Research proposal

If You Really Pay Attention

Introduction

The original idea for this project came from a conversation that I recently had with an elderly lady that I know. She stated that she was fed up with hearing bad news stories about the local community and that all press coverage concerning Burnley and its surrounding areas seem to get a raw deal. We never hear about the good things going on all around us every day, after all bad news sells newspapers.

Aims

I have decided to produce a series of images based on positive stories that affect my local community and to look into the effects of how negative news stories can affect us.

First of all I will start to gather information about good things, positive stories, people and areas that have a positive effect on my community. I would like to leave this quite open at the moment as:-

1. I do not want to box myself into a corner from the start, after all good things can happen at any time and my research could end up diverting me down many different paths.

2. Things change, that is people’s attitudes, places and also my opinion.

3. Something big could happen whilst I am researching one area and I might have to drop that and move forward onto something else. It should be about me being there at the right time.

Reasoning and rationale

A quick Google search of Burnley will produce websites containing information about its football club, the local newspaper (The Burnley Express), its Wikipedia page, some tourist information, Burnley borough council’s homepage and of course the bad news stories from various sites.

Whilst it is not all doom and gloom, it also does not give one many positive stories or reasons to visit the town (unless of course you like football). Football is one of our most positive aspects and as such I think that it gets enough attention to warrant researching for this project. People tend to have a very one sided view about the town that I live in and I would like to try and change this.

The phrase “If you really pay attention” first came to me while I was looking into different ways to research things. It comes from a short story by Paula Underwood and is basically about her father telling her to read between the lines and about hearing what people have to say from their heart. I really liked the notion of this and thought that it would make a good tittle for my research as I will be looking for stories that are positive and indeed could come from the heart. Also it relates to looking deeper to find these stories as not all good stories and ideas are worn on our sleeves.

One of the main ways to research this is to look at the local newspapers and the stories within them. They will have vast knowledge about the local area and of course they all archive the material they gather. This should date back a long time so it will be an invaluable source of research material.

Possible leads

These initial ideas are just a starting point for this proposal as I know things could go one way or the other once I start looking into different stories. My local newspaper is full of stories of bad news and I would be interested to look into the negative effect of this and how it effects us personally.

Does bad news breed bad behaviour?

Should we whitewash over the bad to bring out the good?

Would just hearing good stories also have a negative effect on the community?

These kinds of questions are interesting to try and research and are one of my many possible starting points into this idea. Again it is not all doom and gloom, there are many positive things going on in my area. You just have to look deeper to try and coax some of these stories out.

Two examples of the negative stories that affect my community.

Binmen shocked at ‘laughing’ Burnley flasher

Binmen doing their rounds on a Burnley street were shocked to see a laughing flasher, a court was told.

Police were called because of three “drunk” men, who were aggressive towards the refuse collectors, shouting and causing damage.

A female officer arrived to find Aaron Roberts had dropped his shorts in a front garden, but pulled them up as soon as he spotted her. Roberts (26) made “a thrusting motion for all to see,” after exposing himself, Burnley magistrates heard.

The hearing was told how a refuse supervisor told police he had been “disgusted” by what he had seen, as there were a lot of people around and children had been on their way to school not long before.

Roberts, a young dad with a drink problem, ended up being struck with a baton and PAVA sprayed by police in the garden, but was so inebriated it did not seem to have much effect.

The defendant, of Reynolds Street, Burnley, admitted exposure and resisting police, on April 25th. He was given a two-month curfew, seven days a week, between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. and must pay £55 costs.

Mrs Alex Mann (prosecuting) said it seemed Roberts had been acting stupidly, and his actions were “not really to upset females.”

The refuse collectors had been on Harold Avenue about 9 a.m. and police were called because of the three men causing trouble.

Mr Richard Taylor (defending) said: “He appears before you a chastened young man, embarrassed and ashamed for what he has done. He is somebody who recognises he has a significant problem with alcohol and since this incident, he has self-referred himself to Inspire.”

Mr Taylor said Roberts had been at his friend’s house and had gone out into the garden to urinate, but things went a stage further.

The solicitor added the defendant, who was on benefits, suffered from schizophrenia and was on medication, but had not been taking it at the time.

News story taken from the Burnley Express.

http://www.burnleyexpress.net/news/local-news/binmen-shocked-at-laughing-burnley-flasher-26-1-4518227

The next story was big news when it happened and made the national news for days on end. Lots of people think of Burnley in a negative way because of this story. Last year also marked a ten year anniversary for the riots and there could be lots of potential research that I could do in this area to show how negative stories could have a negative lasting effect on a community.

Burnley riots `sparked by drugs gangs'

CIVIL disturbances in Burnley were not "race riots" but a series of incidents sparked by a war between Asian and white drug gangs, according to a report published today.

But its author, Lord Tony Clarke, claimed the troubles in the Lancashire town were subsequently exploited by organised racists and fuelled by the tensions arising from grinding poverty.

He called on the Government to provide funding for the regeneration of a town which "experiences all of the chronic problems associated with inner-city deprivation".

The Burnley Task Force, of which Lord Clarke was chairman, was formed after violent clashes between groups of whites, Asians and police in the town between June 23 and 25.

The trouble began when two gangs of white and Asian men were involved in a fight which saw property and cars damaged in the early hours of Saturday June 23.

Although the fight is said to have been related to drug dealing, rumours spread that more violence was imminent and an Asian taxi driver was attacked by white racists armed with a hammer.

At 10.30pm a group of Asian men threw bricks through the windows of the Duke of York pub because they believed it was being used to prepare for an attack on them.

The following day a gang of white men began hurling racial abuse before attacking Asian-owned businesses.

Young Asian men retaliated by forming large groups, clashing with police and later firebombing the Duke of York pub.

Lord Clarke wrote: "There is no doubt that following the initial disturbances, white racists took advantage to exacerbate the situation and to promote disharmony.

"It was said that some of these people had come from out of town and appeared to have come just to cause trouble. The disturbances were caused originally by criminal acts followed by deliberate attempts to turn the violent acts into racial confrontation.

"Certainly racial intolerance played a significant role in those disturbances. The confrontations that took place were clearly identified as aggression and violence by both white people and those from the Asian heritage.

"However, in my view the label of race riot does the people of Burnley a grave disservice."

News story from The Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1364972/Burnley-riots-sparked-by-drugs-gangs.html

Bellow are two recent news story’s that brings up a good example of something positive, that’s going to happen, or recently happend, in my town and unless you read the paper then you just would not know that this was going to happen. I have included it here because you can just see the photographic opportunity that could come from this story.

Burnley hairdresser to cycle Leeds and Liverpool Canal for brittle bones charity

A BURNLEY man who has brittle bone disease is preparing to cycle the length of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal for a charity which helps people with the condition.

Simon Townley, joint owner of DJST Hair in St James’s Street, will be joined by 11 of his family and friends for the challenge on August 29th.

He will aim to complete the 127-mile journey from Leeds in two to three days using a specially-adapted wheelchair which he can pedal with his hands.

The group hopes to raise £10,000 for the Brittle Bone Society.

Also taking part in the bike ride will be Simon’s business partner Dale James, Zach O’Connell, Lizzie Warne, Holly Trickett, Neil Plank-Baldwin, Kayleigh Fennessy, Emma Rae, Jared Warne, James Fent and Anita Jordan.

Simon’s mum Mrs Sandra Speight, who will be cheering on the group along the way, said: “They are trying every day to do a bit of training. “It will be more difficult for Simon because of his disability. Simon wanted to do this to give something back, not everybody with his condition gets the chance to do something like that.

“He’s had quite a lot of help over the years. He’s had about 70 fractures. He’s really excited to do something as big as this.”

Story taken from the Burnley Express.

http://www.burnleyexpress.net/news/business-news/burnley-hairdresser-to-cycle-leeds-and-liverpool-canal-for-brittle-bones-charity-1-4518246

‘Titanic’ set to sail again - in Burnley boating lake

A FORMER engineer has created a stunning scale model of the Titanic to mark the 100th anniversary of the ship’s tragic sinking.

Maurice Hessey, of Dorset Street, spent four years piecing together thousands of tiny parts to make a replica of the iconic ocean liner which sank on April 15th, 1912.

The devoted modelmaker studied the original plans of the 900ft vessel to get every single detail correct from the four working funnels down to the ship’s complex rigging.

Maurice has even installed passengers on board the 4ft model including Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s characters from James Cameron’s 1997 Hollywood blockbuster film “Titanic”.

He hopes to launch the model ship in Burnley’s Thompson Park boating lake in the centenary year of the infamous disaster which claimed the lives of 1,517. Maurice said: “I started making it about four years ago. I have read a lot about the Titanic and its history and I thought it would be nice to do something to mark the 100th anniversary.

“Many people have made models of the Titanic but not many people have made ones that actually work.”

He built the model up piece by piece and added an engine and working funnels that produce real steam.

He said: “It was a static display model but I have built it to sail. It is incredibly intricate. It is like an enormous jigsaw.

“The instructions were pretty basic so I got the actual plans from the Titanic. It is all about time and patience making something like this.”

It has been water-proofed and carefully packed with lead ballast to balance the model on its maiden voyage which Maurice hopes to coincide with the 100th anniversary.

News story from the Burnley Express.

http://www.pendletoday.co.uk/news/strange-but-true/titanic-set-to-sail-again-in-burnley-boating-lake-1-4380345

In the first couple of weeks from the starting date of this proposal, I am going to go and see if I can meet someone from the local newspaper and explain what I am doing. I hope then that I can gain access to some of the archives for research purposes.

Other things going on over the next couple of months include:-

The Burnley blues and jazz festival.

The Burnley balloon festival.

The on-going Weavers Triangle regeneration project.

All of the above events could yield good images and could make for interesting research. The local newspaper also researches Burnley of old and there are books that I could buy or read in the library. I have found a few examples to look at and I will be trying to find these for research in the first month of this project.

“Lavishly illustrated with fine quality photographs from the world-famous Francis Frith Collection. Rich in detail this is a fascinating portrait of life and times long since changed”.

Image and description taken from the website below.

http://www.francisfrith.com/shop/books/1-84589-131-7

BURNLEY through time by Rodger Frost.

There also is an area of interest personally to me that I would like to research and that is the “straight Mile”. It is a straight stretch of canal that is a mile long and is part of the Leeds Liverpool canal. It was considered one of the “Seven Wonders” Of The British Waterways on construction. There are lots of old images of this part of Burnley and it would be interesting to try and gather information on it and research the people that worked there or were affected by this area.

Straight Mile 1

Straight Mile 2

Straight Mile 3

Also worth looking into is my father’s own old photography collection. He has been passed down lots of old photographs and these might yield interesting research into my local area from when he was a child. I have scanned some of them into my computer so that I could look at some of them in more detail. There is also a possibility of re-working some of them or re using some of them but in a different way. Bellow are just a few of them given here as an example. If I were to re-work them I would scan them in individually and work on the in Photoshop.

Old Photos From My Father's Collection

It might also be useful to try and find other photographers that have tried to use research in their own projects. One that instantly springs to mind is the recent project by Paul Trevor. Earlier this year I went to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and his work really struck a cord with me.

Paul Trevor 1

Paul Trevor 2

His work interests me as he took these images in Liverpool in 1975 and has recently gone back to the area to try and find the people that were originally in his photographs. He has asked the people from the area to help him and has got newspapers etc, involved with trying to find these people. It is sad to hear that the boy on the flyer for this exhibition died young and interesting to hear about all the stories that have happened since, to the people involved. Paul Trevor now wants to re photograph the people from his earlier work now as they have grown up and it is an excellent evolution formed from a project that happened may years ago.

To conclude this research proposal I need to give myself a timescale to stick to or I could end up getting side-tracked as it is so open.

We have been given until the end of December to complete this project with the notion of handing in all work at the start of January.

Timetable

Starting in June

Gather research and look at narrowing down the project so it is not as open. Find one aspect to concentrate on and look at ways into researching that particular subject.

Remember to keep an open mind as news stories happen every day and I might end up going down a different path.

July

Continue gathering research but look deeper into how the project could develop. Try and focus my research and begin to look at ways in which my photography could be used to document my research. Try and then define what these images are going to be about.

August

Start taking images and refining ideas.

September

Same as above but then start looking at post production and selecting final images.

October

Refine the process and start on outputting images.

November

Outputting images.

December

Output and display.

One final note to remember when I start this project is to remember the ethics involved and to respect peoples rights.

Don’t forget the little people ……………It is their stories that matter.