Source Photographic Review: Learning Packages

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A series of structured learning packages, combining specially commissioned essays with selections of images from Source's back catalogue.

• Portraiture & the Human Form

• Exterior & Interior Spaces

• Documentary & Narrative

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CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES TO PHOTOGRAPHY by Jesse Alexander

Portraiture & the Human Form

Portraiture & the
Human Form »

Exterior & Interior Spaces

Exterior & Interior
Spaces »

Documentary & Narrative

Documentary &
Narrative »

Portraiture, in its various forms, is one of the most established genres in every different discipline of art. We take photographic portraits for granted, taking them has become so in-grained and almost ritualistic within our lives. Over a lifetime, we will have our portrait taken regularly, especially at significant moments such as birthdays, after graduation from college, with a first car perhaps, and certainly on a wedding day. But what do we really mean by the term 'portraiture'?

As well as the people and goings-on around them, photographers have turned to different spaces as subjects for their work. Of course these are infinitely diverse, ranging from exterior spaces that we might identify as 'landscape' photographs, to much smaller interior spaces like bedrooms and even fabricated, model spaces. We will look at how practitioners have used different spaces both to document them and to explore different ideas, themes and concepts.

We are probably all familiar with the idea of a 'document'. I expect you even have some 'official' documents on you at the moment, such as a National Insurance card, library card or maybe a driving licence. There might be some dotted around where you are sitting right now. In fact, you are reading one at this very moment. To an historian or another sort of investigator, a variety of documents, or sources, might be necessary to piece together clues or create an idea (or a narrative) of what a particular situation was like.



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