Geographical Imaginations of Fantasy and Nature - Literature review Example

Literature Review Introduction The advent of camera brought manifold innovations on the way various forms of images are portrayed. More than just the actual geographical landscapes and formations that one can directly take a sight of are the geographical imageries that are formed through the lens of a camera. The interlocking amalgamation of camera angles, distance, and resolution among others provide blueprint to what is called “geography of an imaginary world” (Cameron, 2012). This coinage is more than only accurate in that the images that crop up from capturing objects through a camera create a new dispensation about our own world view: something that is rather fantasy-looking, magical, enchanting, and slightly fairy tales like. Geographical imagination has taken a different dimension where it is now used as part of story- telling about the development of various landscapes. Visual media play a pivotal role in creating fantasy as well as portraying different landscapes in real world as well as the world of make belief. It can be seen that many industries in which cameras are being used are heavily reliant on the technicalities involved in photography. Photography has significantly contributed in the study of geography through portrayal of different images about different landscapes (Sidaway 2002). In the recent years, there have been intense and extensive discussions in geography concerning the “representation and meaning and the reading/writing ‘landscape’, film and literature’” (Sidaway 2002). Of late, there have been proliferations of literary studies investigating the function of photography in geography especially in regards to imperial and neo-imperial geography, modern developments on landscape and identity, motion pictures, science fiction, theater, multimedia entertainment, and the place of photography in providing relics to symbolize social and cultural characteristics of tourism (Ryan 1997; Kinsman 1995). The geographies of the imaginary world, its fantasies, imagination and story telling has largely been shaped by photography for the last couple of decades, and added to how humanity views geographical landscapes. The aspect of photography is very important in the study of geography since it helps people to imagine beyond something that is usual so as to be able to generate more knowledge through interpreting images in different ways. Geography and photography The contemporary works on photography and geography have mainly concentrated on the significance and gist of the things being photographed (Rose 2000). Many argue for the substantial role of photography in providing historical geographers a means to get sense of the past but not for the reason that photographs precisely mirror or keep details of what exactly took place in the past or how things in the past exactly looked like (Sidaway 2002; Crang 1997). Many historical and human geographers put high regard to the worth of photography; they contend that photographs are not merely an emulating medium of the domain they are showing; nevertheless, they contend that the “production, circulation and consumption of photographs produce and reproduce the imagined geographies of the social group or institution for which they were made” (Rose, 2000, p. 37). Seen this way, it somehow means to say that photographs encourage not merely duplicating things they represent but allow us to interpret them using our own opinions to come up with different meanings of a specific image. Essentially, photography in geography helps us to imagine how the world looks like beyond the ordinary picture that is visible to us on a daily basis. With regards to fantasy, imagination and storytelling, photography gives consumers means to get sense of what they see, think about and read in literary texts (Schwartz 1996). Likewise, it would serve as focal point for upgrading the value of the image based on its most useful functions. It also helps to create knowledge about different things. The relationship of photography and geography dates back several centuries ago. Photographs turned highly useful in the geographical fieldwork and teaching, and with the evolvement of time likewise come its fruition to make up for the obsolete and traditional “sketch and hand-drawn map” (Sidaway, 2002). At the start of the twentieth century, the role of photography in geography grew bigger and became a lot far-reaching. It turned out to become the new agent to represent the traditional drawings and paintings (Price 2000). Clearly, geographic fieldworks nowadays are almost impossible to do without photography. While there are other means to capture geographical images, the degree of clarity and accuracy of photographic images by far exceeds those of its counterparts such as hand-drawn sketches maps and paintings. The growing importance of photography goes beyond what people normally think it is mostly used for. Even in the academic field, in the process of learning and teaching the subject of geography, fieldwork, with the aid of photography, is an ideal way of perceiving and understanding the world that has become fundamental to the uniqueness and individuality of the field (Stoddart 1986). This implies the while sketches and hand-made maps and drawings can decently reflect significant images, sometimes the quality that they produce may fall short especially when it comes to analyzing and understanding complex geographical landscapes. The study of certain photographs posits to the effect that photographs help to interpret different elements of the landscape. Geographers are not solely pointing towards looking at the landscape carefully; they believe that landscape is something that necessitates an intellectual inquiry and examination; it requires complex investigations and profound understanding; hence, geographical landscapes require analysis and precise description (Linton 1960). It is difficult to imagine things if the pattern from which a geographer would base his or her imagination is short of details and accuracy. There is nothing to be taken out of the capabilities of drawings and paintings to evoke a certain degree of accuracy, but owing to the fact that geographical landscapes require careful analysis and precise description, it is very important that the image from which geographical imaginations can be drawn from is extremely detailed and should almost exactly mirror the world it represents. Photography not just captures images with a very high level of accuracy, but it also offers the geographers an opportunity to see the world in a much manageable dimension, that is, seeing the portrayed world in the view of a miniature, putting the entire course of investigation into order. When the world has been miniaturized through photography, this can help people to generate a deep understanding of it. Geographies of literature The notion of story extracts attention to the correlation between individual experience and expression, and the larger perspectives within which such familiarities and encounters are structured, carried out, understood, and closely controlled (Cameron 2012). In the previous decades, geographers were mainly concerned about the manners in which stories and the way they are told in the creation of cultural, economic, political and social influence (Cameron 2012). Nowadays, this method to storytelling is being reevaluated and recent methodologies to story are being investigated. Throughout time, geographers have been constantly re-envisioning the idea of story and storytelling as a one manifestation of the “relational and material turn within the discipline” (Cameron 2012) and as proof of an improved concentration on the political feasibilities provided by storytelling, and as a method of conveying nonfigurative geographies. This has been done though photography of geographical features that help people to imagine how the world around them looks like. Touching on another aspect of literary geography, there have been manifold efforts in the past that aimed at mapping literature. Since the time of its conception going back more than a century ago, many literary scholars from different countries around the world attempt to map literature, primarily pointing towards varying reasons but “always with a restricted range of techniques at hand” (Piatti et al. n.d.). For a very long period of time, majority of the ideas that pertains to geographical literature is focused on literary geography and not mapping. Photography has aided this important concept of geography. Nevertheless, the point is that literatures, just like images, evoke an imagination that is useful in interpreting a certain geographical content. In storytelling, especially when geographical landscapes are being mentioned, the clarity in which imaginary images can be perceived depends on how well the landscapes are being defined through words. The portrayal of the landscape in form of photographs makes the image vivid such that we can visualize the image and we can interpret it in different ways. For instance, in fairy tales texts such as children’s storytelling books wherein words are carefully chosen to stimulate the mind to imagine, geographical landscapes or even formations can be deduced in terms of the context in which these geographical details are being used; and it takes a certain degree of imagination to arrive at the most accurate picture. Photography helps to explain clearly the meaning of different aspects of geographical landscapes. Costumes, Scripts and Visuals To a certain extent, costumes correlate with geography but there is a subtle significance as to how costumes and scripts interlock each other when it comes to making the presentation more vivid and real. As Piers argues, costume designers should be given the status of authors just as screenwriters or script editors because the costumes contribute a visual text, which is an equally important component as the script itself (Britton 1999). Imagination of the geographical world and the fairytales, fantasies and imagination associated with it can be better carried out and manifested to the audience if costumes almost resemble the actual object such that the line between reality and a representation is reduced to negligible (Bottoms 1998). According to Laura Gifford (2007), in the process of designing the costumes for a show, it is important to understand the psyche of each of the characters. Therefore, there is a need to establish a stable relationship between the characters and the costumes that they wear to ensure that the highest accuracy of imagination can be achieved. Also, Stella Bruzzi (1997) writes about the clothing in film rather than the people who produced them. She contends that costumes play the main role in the image and have a character to them enhancing the entire piece (Bruzzi 1997). This is particularly true in that the costume serves as the blueprint of the character involved. Gifford (2007) adds that this knowledge or psyche is being taken by the designer, “in the form of photographs, journals, period documents, and modern analysis, and combines it to achieve a unified vision of the play’s environment. Now photography is again being introduced as an important factor in the completion of an effective costume. As aforementioned, photographs help the audience – historical geographers, theater audience, readers for instance with the ability to make the most of their imaginative capabilities by providing the most accurate details of the object being captured (Shepard 1984). Indeed, the obvious linkage between photographs, costumes, and geography are so tessellated in a sense that they all use similar principles for better analysis and understanding of a certain piece of image. Photographs help us to create a clear understanding of the world around us in as far as the study of geography is concerned. Bibliography Sidaway, J.D., 2002. Photography as geographical fieldwork. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 26(1), pp. 95-103. Ryan, J.R., 1997. Picturing empire: photography and the visualization of the British Empire. London: Reaksion. Rose, G., 2000. Practicing photography: an archive, a study, some photographs and a Researcher. Journal of Historical Geography, 26(4), pp. 555-571. Price, D., 2000. Surveyors and surveyed: photography out and about. In: L. Wills, ed. n.d. Photography: a critical introduction. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 65-115. Stoddart, D.R., 1986. On geography. Oxford: Blackwell. Linton, D., 1960. Foreword. In: G.E. Hutchings, ed. n.d. Landscape drawing. London: Methuen.p. vii. Kinsman, P., 1995. Landscape, race and national identity: the photography of Ingrid Pollard. Area, 27, pp. 300-310. Schwartz, J.M., 1996. The geography lesson: photographs and the construction of imaginative geographies. Journal of Historical Geography, 22, pp. 16-45. Crang, M., 1997. Picturing practices: research through the tourist gaze. Progress in Human Geography, 21, pp. 359-373. Bottoms, S.J., 1998. The theatre of Sam Shepard: states of crisis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 164. Shepard, S., 1984. Buried child: seven plays. New York: Bantam Books. p. 70. Cameron, E., 2012. New geographies of story and storytelling. Progress in Human Geography, 36(5), pp. 573-592. Gifford, L., 2007. From Script to Stage: A Costume Designer’s Perspective [PDF] University of Rhode Island. Available at: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=srhonorsprog Piatti et al., n.d. Mapping Literature: Towards a Geography of Fiction [PDF] Cartography. Available at: ftp://cartography.ch/pub/pub_pdf/2009_Piatti_Geography_of_Fiction.pdf Bruzzi, S., 1997. Undressing cinema: clothing and identity in the movies: clothes, identities, films. London: Routledge. Read More