Photographers were asked to find particular aspects of culture, place, and time they felt would add to a larger project descriptive of the small communities and people encountered in Southern Thailand. Students were tasked with keeping in mind how visual and paired written descriptions illustrating their chosen subjects could also lead viewers to consider Thailand’s position in the larger global community.
Any such photography project raises issues of documentary truth, for participants are telling “a”, not “the”, true story. We are limited by ourselves. What one sees and how one sees it — what one chooses to record as noteworthy by making a photograph — is a barometer of the photographer and her/his nationality as much as it is a marker reflecting landscape, culture, lifestyle, and mores of the place and people documented.
During this interdisciplinary St. Edward’s University faculty-led summer program, Raelynn Haynes taught a marine science component and Joe Vitone taught the photography and global studies component presented in this website. St. Edward’s University is a top ranked private liberal arts university in Austin, Texas. For more information about the project photography or about study abroad at St. Edward’s University, please contact Joe Vitone at josephv@stedwards.edu.
Project Photographers and Project Titles
Emily Jane Cosgrove – Monk Ordinations in Thailand
Fiorella Hernandez – Public Education in Rural Thailand
Jordan Hughes – Thai Markets
Briana Martinez – Thai and the Sea
Sarah Morton – Parawood and Rubber Industry
Rowan Pruitt – Thai Housewives
Charles Renneker – Fishing Villages and Management of Waste
Faith Robbins – Between Working to Live and Living to Work
Briana Terry – Thailand Bullfighting
Marlen Zeceña – Thailand’s Forgotten Citizens