Ethnography Project English 1302: Photography

During the semester of Spring 2015 I was assigned the project of studying a subculture that I had an interest in. Studying photography is another way of studying someone’s ideals, emotions and personalities just as some paintings are the reflections of the painter’s emotions. Behind each type of photography is a style and technique which makes each photographers work unique. Also used as a styling technique is post editing and restyling. When shooting in studio there are many factors that create the style and feeling of the photos such as camera angle, lighting position, colors, subjects and the amount of lighting and the recreation of scenes. It also depends on rather the photographer shoots in the style of candid or they create the sets. These aspects make studio photography differ from others because in other style their usually is not as much control over the scene and the lighting which in turn can make studio photography easier or harder depending on what your goal is. I studied portrait photography and the different techniques that photographers use and some of their motives used behind their studio setups. I also studied the communication styles used between the photographers and the way they interacted with the subjects. As a sub study, I also looked at the different types of photography such as analog photography and darkroom printing.  I chose portrait photography because it is the type of photography that I am the least familiar with and also is usually the most widely adopted form of photography as far as photographing people goes. This is a project created for English 1302 at Texas A&M University-Commerce for a course taught by Jennifer Jones.