240523 UE Digital Imaging (P5) (2016S)

We are being flooded by images to an unprecedented degree. Many of us create, share, and communicate through still images almost on a daily basis. For anthropologists, this raises various questions. Does the socio-cultural meaning of photographs change given their ready availability and sheer quantity? Is this process driven by technology, or rather, by social and cultural transformations? How does it affect our visual representation of the empirical realities we are interested in as researchers? What makes a "good" or "interesting" photograph in an ethnographic context?
The course is intended to function as a workshop in the literal sense and will be shaped by the students' needs and interests as much as by the teacher's input and experience. We will practice and reflect on various aspects of digital image creation and processing, experimenting with an understanding of the process of digital photography as a series of choices that technology tends to take away from our hands but that we can reclaim.
A major focus will be on hands-on training with self-provided cameras (preferably DSLRs) and various software tools, along with reflection on the influence of technology on the creation of and communication through images.