Kimberly A. Ingram and Dr. Michael D. Bush, French and Italian

This grant has enabled me to embark upon an exciting project that will improve the tools available in the field of French Language acquisition, a video disc textbook. This project contains three main objectives: 1) set up a bilingual database of the images necessary to compile a “little c” culture textbook [i.e. the small, day to day activities that set apart daily life in France from other cultures], 2) obtain the actual images, 3) work with a publishing company and submit it for publication.

In coordination with my faculty advisor, I helped create a database of images. These images became the actual photos necessary for each cultural unit of the video disc textbook. The database is comprised of a top-down hierarchy of topics that divide daily life into general categories. These categories include such topics as: personal identification, eating, entertainment, shopping, transportation, etc.. Within each topic are several subtopics, i.e. Transportation—Public / Private modes of Transportation, and within many subtopics are additional subtopics. The goal is to be able to identify as many details as possible within each general topic thus allowing the subtle differences in French culture to emerge in a format easily presented in a classroom setting. For example, the topic of transportation can be broken down as follows: Transportation Public/Private modes of transportation—Train (public)—Tickets—Composting a ticket. Due to the complex nature and magnitude of the collected information, the database has been set up in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program to facilitate easy manipulation of the data in the future.

I used the database to compile a series of shot lists for each general category. The shot list acted as an inventory record to indicate which shots needed to be taken and to help keep track of which images had been successfully captured on film and which ones had not. Due to the delicate and complex nature of photography we decided that we needed to allow for error in the actual photography process. The margin of error for each shot was 3, meaning each image was captured with the camera on three different settings to ensure success.

With shot lists in hand and over fifty rolls of film I boarded a plane bound to Paris to spend the next 16 days putting France on film. Looking at life through the lens of a camera puts things in a slightly different perspective. Trying to dodge people, solve inadequate lighting problems, keep the image in focus, and deal with unexpected weather difficulties made the project quite a task. Interacting with the people and recording their way of life was fun and exciting. I had many companies and corporations request examples of my best work upon my return. Most individuals were agreeable and accommodating making the photography aspect of the project easier to accomplish.

The final phase of this project is the technical and organizational side of the picture taking. I am marking off which images were successfully achieved, assigning them identification numbers, and doing final evaluations to determine which areas need further work. The next step is to put the hundreds of rolls of film on photo c.d.’s, design an organization schema for the textbook, design individual bar-codes for each image and publish it. The final portion of this project will be a joint effort between my faculty advisor and the publishing company.