Thesis Title: Investigating the position and role of photo books in contemporary Iranian photography society
By: Shahla rafati
Supervisor: Dr: Mehdi Moghimnejad
Degree: MA
Course of Study: Photography
July 2019
Abstract
This research investigate the photobook place in the Iran contemporary photography community.
The author analyzes the contemporary status of this specific type of photographic aspect, According to the effective role and place of the photobook as one of the essential criteria for recognition of photography culture. Although photobook is one of the most abiding ways for preserving visual culture through photography little research has been done in this area so far. To address this, some reviews have been done after describing its historical process in abroad and later in Iran focusing on the recent photobook place, internet progress, cyberspace and easiness of photography availability. Along this rout, according to the limitation of written sources, the author is constrained to apply the method of interviewing the photography community (critics, university professors, publishers, active photographers and clear-sighted of this field) who are the most important users of the photobook to access the unwritten photobook history parts that forerunners of this field preserve as oral history.
Research shows that specifically in the last 30 years, production process and photobook usage has changed tremendously. This research seeks to respond to photobook current place according to the hypothesis of the wane status of the photobook in Iran present circumstances, and looks for discovering specific features and novel methods such as design features, limiting the number of editions, publishing photobooks in an exquisite way, and emphasizing textual and visual ornaments in format of book production to meet today's circumstances needs and keep pace with the advances of the Internet and the growth of cyberspace, and to justify its use.
Key words: contemporary photography, photobook