Photography Research

This guide is intended to help Photography students find resources and boost their research skillz. Here are some other guides you might find useful!

Art & Design Research Guide: For in-depth research help, including tips and tools
Visual Media Guide: For resources to help with finding, citing, and legally using visual media
Professional Resources Guide: For professional resources, like help finding jobs and writing an artist's statement

When doing research, try starting with @LL Search, it searches everything @ Lesley Library, including journal databases, book catalogs, eBook libraries, encyclopedia entries, newspaper articles, and streaming media!

An alternative to searching with keywords, you could start with a reputable publisher and browse around. If you struggle with word choice and keywords when searching, this more visual alternative to discovery could be just what you need!  You can browse based on what draws your eye, but keep an eye out for the language that artists use to describe their work. The more blurbs you read the better you'll get at searching with keywords.

OWL Purdue Citation Manual
Scroll through the different types of resources to make sure you're citing the specific kind of book, article, etc. that you're using

Lesley's MLA Citation Guide
Links to helpful resources for formatting an MLA paper, formatting citations, and creating an annotated bibliography

Lesley's Guide to Citing and Captioning Images
You cite the artwork itself, and then cite where you found it (book, online, magazine, etc.)

Annotation Example:

An annotation should include 1-2 sentences about each of the following:  

• Summarize the resource
• Speak to how it connects back to your work
• Evaluate it (is it reliable? What are the author’s qualifications? Is it introductory writing or written for experts? For amateur photographers or professional?). 

Tatsitsa, Jacob. “Black-and-White Photography in Batcham: From a Golden Age to Decline (1970–1990).” History & Anthropology, vol. 26, no. 4, Oct. 2015, pp. 458–479. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/02757206.2015.1074899.  

This article contains biographical information and information about the works of contemporary black and white photographers from Batcham, West Cameroon. It contains quotes from the artists and examples of their work.  I chose it because I wanted a reference for work outside of the United States, and because the author discusses the article as an archive and I’m interested in exploring archival photography. The article was published in a scholarly journal and the author is a professor at a university in Cameroon. The author includes a lot of citations to support their ideas. 

Annotating an Image:

• Put the citation first
• Then write a short paragraph
  • short description of the work and the artist,
  • explanation of how this work is similar/dissimilar to your own,
  • focus on how you might use this work (as comparison to your own, as inspiration for a future direction you might take, to support a certain argument you're making in a paper, etc.)