PHOTOSPEAK! : Photography and Documentation

 

 

 

The old cliché is right: a picture tells a thousand words. And, thousands more! Photographs do much more than capture moments in time. Photographs add authenticity to text, the spoken word and are a visual record of things- known, unknown and unnoticed. Images transcend language barriers and weave a powerful narrative of the history and culture of a place and its people. As a tool for recording and understanding history it is “all of the above”. 

Increasingly, with the passage of time and the loss of cultural artefacts, historical projects and patrimony have become indelibly intertwined. It is certainly not urban legend that many countries have come to realise the loss of national information to cultures with enough assets, cognisance and timing to purchase the rights. The question is asked rhetorically for example: How many rights does Jamaica own to the works of Bob Marley?

 The painful lessons of the past have been learnt. The importance of documenting and keeping records is being realised and countries and organisations are spending large sums of money to ensure that national heritages are preserved. Information and communication technology (ICT) is a powerful ally in this regard– new and emerging technologies are creating electronic tools and platforms that enable a variety of digital initiatives by libraries, archives and other similar institutions. These are now being used to collect, store and share information though the processes of scanning, electronic audio and video files-sharing, databases etc. Great effort is being made to reduce the scatter of photographic images, restore, preserve, digitise and store them in databases for storage and retrieval. Best of all, an impressive percentage of these efforts and energies are making the news.

This blog  provides commentary and critical appreciation on the headliners: photographic documentation projects and preservation activities that are making the news. It will promote the importance of preserving one’s cultural heritage by way of visual documentation and share the work being done by others to document and preserve patrimony.

 

Hopefully the zest that created this blog will be contagious.

EMAIL A FRIEND

 

 

Advertisement