The name of the project highlights that I will be studying a place through a photographic medium, although this could be a lot more abstract than simply taking straight-on photos of the area.
To begin the project our lecturer handed out separate sheets of A4 which had the map of an area printed onto them. These areas all surround Manchester city centre without included it, I believe this was to get us all out into new areas rather than photographing the centre as an easy option. We were all told to choose one sheet and base your project on the areas found within.
Below is the sheet I was given:
I began looking at the map of my area to find something interesting to photograph before actually going to the area, but soon gave up as I couldn't find anywhere. I then decided to choose Swinton as a good place to start my project, due to it looking like the most built up area within my map, so I believed should be the most interesting place to photograph.
Swinton is a town within the city of Salford in the Greater Manchester area, but was historically in Lancashire before Manchester grew to a size where it swallowed it. The name Swinton derives from the old english word 'Swynton' meaning 'swine town', this shows that before the industrial revolution Swinton was a pig farming town. Coal lies within the area which brought rise to Swinton during the industrial revolution. Then in 1974 it became part of Salford which in effect turned it into a commuter town, supported by its increasing transport network to Manchester centre.
My initial ideas while looking at the past was to think about photographing the change in employment, how its moved from a pig farming town to a commuter, although I'm still unsure in how I would show this. Next I considered the idea of collaborating text and images together from appropriated reviews of the area combined with my photographs. Finally I looked at topographic photography which is where images capture a landscape as if it were being surveyed from afar, this would allow me to start photographically studying the area without changing what its like if you were to visit it. I chose this last technique as my starting place for the project, in which I would document things I find visually interesting when walking around Swinton.