Browsing by Author "McDonald, Lawrence"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Camera antipode : Ans Westra : photography as a form of ethnographic & historical writing : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Social Anthropology Programme, School of People, Environment & Planning, Massey University, Manawatu
    (Massey University, 2012) McDonald, Lawrence
    Camera Antipode: Ans Westra: Photography as a Form of Historical and Ethnographic Writing is a study of the career of the New Zealand social documentary photographer Ans Westra. It covers the period from her arrival in New Zealand from the Netherlands in 1957 right up until her most recent projects. The emphasis throughout is on Westra as a cross-cultural photographer whose work is best understood within various historical contexts and as a form of ethnographic and historical representation in its own right. The dissertation has two parts. Part One, Isagogics, consists of three chapters that deal with a range of general issues that have shaped Westra’s work and contribute to an understanding of its character. All three serve to situate Westra within multifarious conceptual frameworks and institutional contexts and establish the historical, cultural and intellectual field from which her creative project has emerged. The seven chapters of Part Two, Exegesis, provide detailed readings of Westra’s photographic books, taking in both her large-scale projects aimed at a general readership and her Bulletins and photographic essays for use in schools. Part Two proceeds chronologically and is divided into the decades of the 1960s, the 1970s, and the 1980s and on up to the present. A set of appendices follows Part Two. The first is a transcript of an interview with Ans Westra, the second a biographical chronology of her life and career, the third a list of her one-person and group exhibitions, and the fourth a set of photographs that are discussed in the text. Following the consolidated notes and references section is a bibliography in two parts: the first part is a complete list of Westra’s published works, which constitutes the primary sources of the dissertation, followed by a fraction of the secondary sources – books, articles, and reviews of Westra’s publications and exhibitions; the second part of the bibliography contains all non-Westra references cited.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Eye and camera, voice and text : the interaction of photographic images and literary texts in ethnographic and social documentary studies and the work of Glenn Busch : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the degree of Master of Arts, Department of Social Anthropology, Massey University
    (Massey University, 1998) McDonald, Lawrence
    Eye and Camera: Voice and Text is a general enquiry into ethnography, photography and the composite or hybrid forms of ethnographic photography and social documentary photography. It consists of three theoretical discussion chapters and one extended case study of a major practitioner's work. Chapter one discusses ethnography as a literary genre. Chapter two, the more important attempts at providing a theory of what kind of medium photography is and how it produces meaning. Chapter three begins by considering what a specifically ethnographic and social documentary photography is and does before concluding with a survey of several major projects which have made considerable use of photography for the purpose of ethnographic and social documentary understanding. The concerns of the first three chapters are then brought to bear in a fourth and final chapter devoted to the New Zealand social documentary photographer Glenn Busch. Busch's work (and that of two of his former pupils) has been chosen because of its clear social focus and because he uses combined visual and verbal means of presentation.