BU Research Blog

Communicating PGR Research:

FMC Lunchtime PGR Seminar Series
All Welcome!

Wednesday 11 November
Weymouth House, Room 431

1-2pm
Speaker: Rutherford

Title: ‘On the Subject of Photographs…’

We are (usually) prepared to acknowledge the influence of the photographer and his/her decisions on the appearance of photographs. Yet the camera – like the microscope and the telescope – is assumed to be both objective and passive when documenting the things in front of the lens. This belief in the objective and passive role of the camera is demonstrated by the prevalence of the phrase that pictures are ‘taken’.

In this talk, I want to consider the possibility that as a result of the ways in which the medium interprets and renders objects, scenes, events and moments as well as the juxtapositions between these, the camera/medium sometimes creates – then records and depicts – scenes, events and ‘moments’ that did not exist until brought into being by the act of photographing them.

Rutherford

Previously a commercial photographer in Toronto Canada, Rutherford led a workshop series for graduate students at Toronto’s Ryerson Polytechnic University that explored the significance of the elements intuitively incorporated into our casual photographic snapshots and how these can lead to greater self-awareness and acceptance. Following withdrawal from commercial photographic practice in 1993, Rutherford’s photographic works have been exhibited in solo and group shows in Canada, the United States, France, New Zealand and Japan. Rutherford’s essays on corporate communication, visual design, advertising and their influences on how we make meaning have appeared in several academic journals, newspapers and magazines.