Seminar: Interviews and present partners work

In todays session we were given a set of interview questions which we had to write down as we discussed them within the group. From this task I definitely have a better understanding of my essay and where it will help me within my current practice. Some of the questions I hadn't even thought about which are actually quite important to think about during the report. Below are the questions and my answers...

Describe your research report in 10 words

Reflective report debating if photography could be a type of therapy

Why is this subject relevant to the industry

Documentary. It could also be used in advertisement with adverts that intend to pull on the heart strings for donations. 

Why is it relevant to you

From my own personal experience, having lost family members at a young age and not having that accurate image of them in my mind photographs help me to remember them and bring back memories. 

Name 3 key references

Kirsty Mitchell, Wonderland. Context and Narrative (book). 19th century post-mortem photography
Describe how they influence your subject matter

It's enabled me to comfortably photograph on behalf of the loss of my mother without feeling like it's a depressing subject for people to take interest in. 

Describe your research plan

My primary research at the minute has been making surveys for the public to answer in hope to find evidence to back up my theory that photography can be therapeutic for those suffering with grief. My secondary research is how subjective matters are approached. Looking through the ethics that need to be considered but also the boundaries people have pushed to go as far as photographing a dead person in order to remember them. I've also looked at the theories of Susan Sontag and Abigail Solomon-Godeau.
What have you discovered so far

Within one of my surveys I've found out that more people than I would have expected do not own a photo of that person who they have lost. Also they believe it is possible to cope through grief if they didn't have a photo on hand. However I asked if they could consider photography as a type of therapy and the majority answered yes and maybe. 

I've also discovered (quite disturbingly) that in the 19th century, post-mortem photography was known and used a lot when someone died as a way for the family to grieve.
How will this influence your practice

Their different approaches that display death will influence me to be less obvious about the subject matter and think more creatively. Kirsty Mitchell, Gaia, The Birth of an End is a great example of this...
What is your key quote

Susan Sontag, On Photography...

“A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs—especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past—are incitements to reverie. The sense of the unattainable that can be evoked by photographs feeds directly into the erotic feelings of those for whom desirability is enhanced by distance.”
What will be the outcome of your report

Evidence that photography can be a type of therapy for those in need of comfort.