Introduction

This is a book about current photographic practice. The initial premise for the book evolved gradually from a series of occasional conversations between the two authors about the nature of the creative process for contemporary photographers, and the role that research plays in the development of ideas and the creation of work. Later it became a more deliberate attempt to unpick some of the thoughts and themes that emerged from those discussions, to extend them and formalise our exchange of views in a book that would be useful to students and practising photographers alike.

Although our individual understanding of research came from two quite distinct perspectives, one as a photographer turned academic and one curatorial, it became clear early on that the ways we understood the term research in relation to photography often overlapped and resonated with recurring themes, shared understandings, experiences and opinions.

At this stage our first question to ourselves was the very obvious one: ‘What does research mean for photographers?’ So our starting point for the book was to find a way to ask this of as many photographers as we could, and to do this we decided that the core of the book would be a set of interviews with photographers.

At the same time we thought that the book would also benefit from a number of essays as counterpoint to the interviews. The purpose of these would be to provide a broader context for thinking about research than the first person, experiential accounts and to address, in more depth, particular issues that the interviews might only touch on. Our starting point for the essays was the research we knew Patricia Townsend to be doing in looking at the processes of making work.

In deciding to interview practitioners we set out to find out what photographers actually do when they research and how they integrate research into their work. We wanted to see to what degree individual practices differ and what parallels could be drawn across those practices. We wanted to identify ways in which research is understood by a diverse range of photographic practitioners; to see the forms it takes; to look at the question of whether there is a basic level of research that needs to be conducted before a project can begin. We also wanted to look at the roles of intuition and chance and to allow for other ideas to emerge from our enquiry.

As a way of shaping the project we defined our aims in order to develop a set of questions which we asked every interviewee:

1. How do you define the term research? Do you have a personal interpretation of research?
2. How would you describe the kinds of research that you do, and how does your research inform your practice?
3. How would you describe the impact it has on work in progress? In what ways does the research you do enhance, transform or otherwise impact on your work? Does research influence or inform the formulation of your ideas? Does research help to identify and foster a critical approach? Can you give examples of the ways in which research has enabled you to identify and solve problems that have emerged in your work?
4. Has research developed your practice over time and, if so, how?
5. Do you record the creative journey for each project in some way? And do you evaluate the research input as part of this?
6. How would you describe the impact research has on the ways in which you consider the siting of your work in the public domain and your approach to audiences?
7. Do you have any additional observations regarding research that you would like to add?

However, we left it to the interviewees to decide whether or not they would answer all the questions and in what depth since we soon discovered that some issues had more resonance than others for each practitioner. Above all we wanted to avoid a proscriptive approach or the suggestion that there is only one way to undertake, evaluate and apply the outcomes of research.

We selected as wide a range of photographers as we could—chosen across practices, approaches, gender, race, and stage of career. However, it soon became clear that it would be impossible to achieve a completely comprehensive coverage of current practice that would include, for instance, a range of editorial and advertising practices without making a very much larger and encyclopaedic book rather than the intimate look into personal practice that we wanted this book to be.

In the end we also limited ourselves to interviewing mostly mid- and late-career photographers on the basis that they would have more experience to draw on and share. But we also felt it was important to look at the way students at different levels of higher education might understand research and how they would evaluate its usefulness to their developing practice, and so we interviewed two students who had just completed a BA and an MA and one who is working towards the completion of a photographic practice-based PhD.

What became clear quite quickly, though not unexpectedly, was that although there were some similarities and common approaches to research, each of our interviewees had, over time, shaped and adapted their experiences and methods to suit their particular needs or circumstances, which they applied across most of their projects.

So, for example, we talked to photographers like Simon Norfolk who researches every aspect of his subject, including how he might take the final images, before he starts the work, in contrast to Susan Derges and Hannah Collins for whom the research is itself the work and cannot be unpicked from the final outcome. It became difficult to avoid seeing this as a gender issue initially, although we also interviewed other women photographers, including Deborah Bright and Mandy Barker, who don’t follow the same path. We then recognised that our survey exists to describe possible research routes, to ask questions and open up ideas about research but that it could not in itself come up with a definitive analysis or roadmap which anyone can follow. This is because the options and variables within the research process for photographers are broad and because practice is so particular and dependent on the habits, needs and preferences of the individual as well as the purpose and audience for the work. To make this visible we also asked our interviewees to provide a portfolio of images, because we wanted to situate our discussions within a practical context and to see how research threaded through their work.

The term research represents a course of action that can lead to outcomes that are not fixed or predictable. Research materials can be drawn from many sources including specialist archives of all kinds; the established conventions, theories and practices laid down in the literature of photographic and art history, science, technology and the many philosophies that have become central to discussion on photography. Research can emerge through everyday encounters and can be triggered by self-inquiry and the personal nature of experience. And, of course, the starting point for many photography projects is to look at what and how other photographers or artists have covered the same subject. Anything is possible and anything may feed the research process.

In selecting the subject matter for the series of essays in the book we started with Patricia Townsend’s research into the negotiation between the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds of the artist. In a way we saw this sort of juggling between what she describes as ‘the hunch’ and what is already known as the pivot on which all the interviews turn. During the interview process we discovered that each interviewee has, over time, found a way of working which marks a different resolution of the process she is describing and which fits with their own particular mindset, practice and approach to working.

We then expanded on some of the subjects touched on in the interviews. So, for example, Conohar Scott looks in some detail at working collaboratively both with a small group and with organisations with the same, or similar, concerns. Shirley Read reflects on the interests of photographers who focus on a single, broad research theme which they then develop over time. Janina Struk looks at how the two different elements of her photographic practice intertwine and impact on each other and on her thinking about her work. Mike Simmons presents an approach to the organising and recording of photographic projects through written documentation. Sian Bonnell opens up the question of the audience’s influence on practice, which is also considered in many of the interviews, by describing how unexpected audience response caused her a major rethink about her work. Camilla Brown considers how exhibition as a chosen outcome for the work can be a subject for the photographer to research in terms of practical aspects such as planning, space, design installation and the development of a collaborative relationship with a curator.

It is part of the human condition to look beyond the horizon in an effort to understand the world we live in more completely, and photography has been pivotal to that process since its inception. Photography has come a long way since the early pioneers grappled with the science of the new medium, but in many ways it still remains grounded in the desire to explore the boundaries of what we know or understand. Across the span of art history photography is a relative newcomer. Yet in the short period since its invention it has given the world some of the most memorable and challenging images of our times. Photographs have been the means used to question our actions, expose our motives and plumb the very depths of the human soul. Photography has succeeded in presenting both the ordinary and the extraordinary in equal measure; fact and fiction, memory and the imagination all fall within its scope. What makes photography relevant lies in its paradoxical nature and the ability to both describe and express.

We see this book as a research project in itself, bringing together examples of photographic practice for you to consider and absorb into your own ideas, processes and projects.

Shirley Read
Mike Simmons
London and Leicester 2016