Rewriting tourist photography

  • Christine Kuhling

Western Sydney University thesis: Doctoral thesis

Abstract

Photography is a global medium that has recently been revolutionised by processes of digitalisation. Tourism is one domain in which photography has been employed on a massive scale, nowhere more so than in Asia where millions of the newly affluent are now travelling to domestic and foreign tourism destinations. This thesis investigates photographic practices by Indian tourists in Goa. It aims to show how the digital camera has been appropriated into and reworked by Indian travel culture. For this purpose, I employ Christopher Pinney's (2010) conceptual framework, 'camerawork as technical practice', as well as Gerd Spittler's (2001) 'thick participation' research approach. The analysis of my ethnographic fieldwork in Goa focuses firstly on the ways that digital cameras, including those embedded in smartphones, are used by young Indian visitors as a vehicle for spending time together and bonding ('Timepass') and as a medium for experiments in self-representation ('Looking Good') that draw heavily on Indian popular cinema. Secondly, I examine ways in which the camera is deployed to 'capture' images of fair-skinned foreigners on Goa's beaches and what these images (and what fair skin) mean to the photographers. Finally, I study the ways that digital photography has changed the practices of 'commercial photographers', those men who offer their service at popular tourist sites in Goa, acting as directors who arrange their customers in poses taken from popular cinema. Emerging from this research is a vision of tourist photography in India in which the camera's democratising effect takes many forms. Among them is the involvement of the digital camera in experimentations in social mobility, where the camera's digital screen enables collaborative aspirational image-making. Also, a counter-colonial element was found to be evident in strategies for photographing 'white' foreigners on Goa's beaches. Lastly, the adoption of the portable printer by commercial photographers has enabled them to remain viable. The thesis ends with a short summary and suggestions for future research projects that further the inquiry into the role of the photographic camera as an agent in societal transformation.
Date of Award2017
Original languageEnglish

Keywords

  • photography
  • artistic
  • tourism
  • social aspects
  • Goa (India : State)

Cite this

'