Proposing an ontological division based on the terms photobook and photobookwork, the main goal of this thesis is to examine and ascertain the historical, material and conceptual characteristics of the latter book practices. Conducted from a critical perspective, the analysis that structures this project aims in the first place to demonstrate how a series of interconnected material, cultural and aesthetic developments enabled the emergence and maturation of photobook practice between the late 1830s and the early 1890s. The project also explores how the materialization of photographically illustrated cultural magazines in the late nineteenth-century catalysed a transformation of visual discourse and literacy that later enabled the full development of photobookwork practice. Importantly, this thesis suggests that photographically illustrated book making fully branched into two distinct forms in the mid 1920s. Whereas until that period photographic illustration in book form was predominantly rooted in the single photographic image, modernist photobook makers, greatly influenced by the visual discourse of photographically illustrated periodicals, developed a photographically illustrated book practice centred on cumulative and relational photographic narratives that traversed the entirety of the book. Ultimately, this project attempts to recalibrate the somewhat monolithic and nebulous perception of photobook history proposed in recent general ‘photobook’ scholarship, while simultaneously contributing towards a better understanding of the historical, material and ontological characteristics that define the two forms of photographic illustration in book form discussed throughout this thesis.

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War photography is conventionally understood to be a hypermasculine practice, undertaken by risk-taking photojournalists in the combat zone. Despite growing scholarship on the fields of photography, war, and gender, there remains little that considers war’s photographic dimension as a charged arena for gender relations. This intellectual limitation impedes understanding of women’s agency and substantial participation at the nexus of war and photography. Rather than single out exceptional female exponents, or offer an essentialist view of ‘feminine’ traits, I show how the discursive construction of war photography is hostile to the participation of women, rendering their activities invalid. A twofold theoretical and methodological innovation redefines the conception of war photography to make it adequate to women's activities, and offers the model of ‘engagement’ to account for a wider range of interactions with photography beyond professional photojournalism. A series of case studies, drawn from hemispheric America between 1910 and 1990, reveals the ways in which women have negotiated gendered constraints to photographically engage with war. The conflicts considered (the Mexican Revolution, US participation in the Second World War, the Sandinista Revolution and Contra War, and Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’) enable analysis of distinct modes of warfare undertaken in diverse localities and historical moments. The artefacts examined – photographic postcards of firing squad victims, placards used in protests, propaganda pamphlets and fashion magazines amongst others – demonstrate the importance of conceiving photography a material and social practice. While women rarely operate in the 'Capa mode' of hypermasculine war photographer, they presistently find photographic means to forcefully assert their status as central and active participants in war and politics, rather than bystanders of history.

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This thesis discusses the multifaceted status of the photograph, as a contribution to understanding the mechanics of the production of meaning within the photograph. In order to get a better view of how photographs function, I both revisit discourses that have dealt with medium specificity issues and use my own practice, designing an apprehension model which can assist in the achievement of a more rigorous conception of the photograph. An integrative literature review, based on Photography discourses and debates shaped by both theorists and practitioners, provides the tools needed for defining the medium’s unique and shared properties. Ontological synecdoches of the photograph, issues of representation, time, automatism, agency, the twofold nature –trace and picture- as well as depiction theories of the medium are put into scrutiny towards formulating an apprehension scheme. This body or knowledge, along with my visual practice’s research outcomes, informs the construction of an appropriate model for understanding the medium’s effect. In specific, this study designs and applies a synthesized model of thought which considers photographs as a fixed unity of interdependent links in the chain called ‘act of photography’. This model is based on the parameters that contribute towards a photograph’s apprehension –Operator, Apparatus, Scenery, Photograph, Viewer (OASPV). A thorough illustration of the application of this model onto a specific photograph is provided, showing how a verbal articulation of apprehending a photograph can take place in order for bad or poor readings to be avoided. An explanation of the working strategy I applied throughout my creative practice along with a discussion upon the images chosen for the portfolio accompanying this thesis, is offered. In specific, it is shown how the apprehension scheme is reflected in my practice, along with a contextualisation of my photographs -placing emphasis in notions such as the ordinary, ineffable, serendipity, trace and picture as well as similarities to the work of other practitioners. This thesis discusses the elements that formulate the encrypted information inscribed on the surface of photographs, namely it unfolds their layers throughout creating, perceiving and conceiving them.

This thesis explores how photojournalists and the images they produce can be used to enhance global and local understanding of genocide, and help in both reconciliation and remembrance in post-conflict societies. It takes the war in the Former Yugoslavia as a case study, and argues that the act of actively bearing witness has a distinctive moral quality that goes beyond that of simple passive witnessing, and that it has a potential therapeutic and validating potential as well as an accusatory or documentary one. The photographer can become a proxy witness for the rest of society, and the product of this witnessing, the photograph, has a culturally privileged position in light of the foregrounding of the visual as believable evidence. Through the material presence of the photograph, and its portability and mobility, the act of witnessing is transferred then from the photographer as the witness to the event to the photograph itself as the vehicle through which this privileged visualisation is disseminated. When the potential for the photograph as a carrier of memory is added, the potential is then generated for photographs of atrocity to become encapsulated arguments about the abuse and war crimes, and thus as markers of what could be called ‘moral memory’, generating ethical arguments and positions about what is right and wrong in societies responses to conflict and suffering. The thesis develops a series of categories of witnessing that include the Presentational, the Participatory, the Prosecutorial and the Post Factum, explored though case studies of the work of photographers during the conflict to explore how Genocide can be reported more successfully, and works from the post-conflict era to demonstrate how visual images can be used to heal the wounds of war as well as remember its victims.

This PhD by prior publication comprises a major rephotography project undertaken in two phases (First View, 1986-89 and Second View, 2009-12), together with a written commentary. The project is based on an area along the A62 which connects Manchester to Oldham, a corridor route, which I considered invisible and between places, a seeming ‘non place’.1 The research questions how can topographic images made by adopting strategies of rephotography help to depict aspects of place that remain hidden in generic representations and how, in turn, this photographic record can be put to use. The accompanying critical commentary investigates how this project came to be realised, the photographic research methodologies employed, and relevant contextual frameworks together with the different contexts through which the work has been disseminated and shared. It considers what the practice of rephotography contributes as a visual research method when analysing the shifting topography of a specific urban corridor. Further to this, it suggests ways in which such rephotography can engage different audiences and communities in debate about lived experience of social and economic change. The First View photographic research project was initially conducted by making a series of visits to the area each year recording transformation through redevelopment projects and subtler changes such as incidental events on the street and the variations of seasons. The project took an ethnographic approach to human involvement with place and space (Massey, D. 1994) as well as drawing upon anthropological methods that employ photography as a research tool (Prosser, J. 1998). Outputs from this project demonstrate processes adopted and examples of the photography made. A selection of photographs from First View became a touring exhibition shown in Oldham and Manchester (1986-87) and then in London. A book was also published by the Architectural Association (1987) with a commentary written by Ian Jeffrey. The second view (2009-12) revisits the first survey and considers what happened after. I wanted to consider twenty five years on how the continued process of change may have increasingly eroded/altered the sense of place 1 This term derives from Marc Augé’s book, Lieux et Non-Lieux (2001). 6 within the community. Since the First View a number of external factors influenced how the research would continue. The political scene had changed with introduction of private initiatives and housing associations taking responsibility to manage and refurbish aging housing stock in the public sector closer to the Manchester and in areas towards Oldham. Further cleared areas remained undeveloped due to a major financial downturn. Also the adoption of digital technologies had changed how photography was made, viewed, and used. This led me to consider how the Second View could be more collaborative (Kester, G. 2011) and so modify my method and find new ways to interact with members of the community to help inform the work. Outputs included exhibitions at Gallery Oldham and The People’s History Museum, Manchester and an accompanying commentary written by Stephen Hanson. I also include reviews and examples of additional collaborative photography made and shown alongside the core exhibitions. Examples of the printed work are now housed in Oldham library (including the complete set of Second View exhibition prints, contact sheets and this written report). It is permanently accessible for public and academic use under a commons license. Although it can be argued that all photographic practice contains elements of rephotography, this project contributes to original knowledge through analysis of processes used to make the first long-term comparative and detailed photographic study of the Oldham Road as an area exemplifying shift from industrialisation to service provision. ‘Hermeneutic perspectives emphasise photographs as texts, demanding semantic and semiotic interpretation to determine meaning’ (Margolis and Rowe, 2012). The corridor is now undergoing further changes as new projects by housing associations and globalised business begin to fill the spaces left by previous clearances. My published work shows connections, continuities and breakages and new questions emerge about what values are worth preserving for a future community. I suggest that a continuing photographic element can contribute to an understanding of incidental detail that can influence a more sensitive management of infrastructure and potentially help residents adjust to change and thus maintain their sense of place.

My proposition developed in this thesis is that photographs have changed the way the past is conceived and therefore the way the past is remembered. Just as the inventions of the telescope and microscope radically changed our understanding of distance and space on a macro and micro level, the invention of the photograph has radically altered our concepts of the past, memory and time. My starting point is a collection of photographs taken by my grandfather, Albert Edward Ingham, which is used both in my studio work and as a basis for my theoretical writing. My concerns as an artist are with the ways in which familiar photographs and their relation to ideas of personal memory can be incorporated in an art practice. The written element begins with a reflection into my motivation for using this collection and its usefulness to both my written and studio work. I include a short biography of my grandfather, leading me to consider biography and autobiography, and their relation through photography to autobiographical memory. This is followed by an in depth discussion on autobiographical memory and how it differs from other forms and processes of memory. With this I have placed a discussion of contemporary ideas on photographs. Finally I look closely at ‘external memory systems’ and how these relate to changes in the way autobiographical memory operates in relation to photographs. The emphasis of this thesis is to explore ways to elucidate my own practice as an artist and to offer a commentary on those issues which have been central to its development over the past several years. This has been, and continues to be, a process of making explicit and of clarifying those influences that have resulted in me pursuing autobiography as the major concern of my practice as an artist.

This PhD by practice sets out to reformulate the meeting between photographer and subject, from one that is commonly constructed as a power relationship to an empathic meeting between subjectivities. It is an attempt to re-engage with the original promise of photography –that of connecting with the ‘soul’ of the other. I take a phenomenological perspective, applying recent research in the field of neuroscience and psychology to throw new light on processes at play, both when we view photographically reproduced human faces and when we come face to face with others in the meeting preceding photographic portraits. My original contribution to knowledge consists of beginning to construct a theory as to why certain photographic portraits invoke an embodied reaction, whilst others leave us cold. What is it that makes us look again and again at particular photographic portraits? I propose that emotional contagion is an important factor both when making and viewing photograpic portraiture. It was not within the scope of this thesis by practice to explore this proposition, but it is an area suitable for further research. I use the practice as a testing ground, letting each new step develop out of my reflections on the previous work, using a qualitative methodology. I approach the face-to-face meeting through the writing of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and phenomenology, and make a series of experimentations, letting the practice twist and turn upon itself. I strip away and interchange the components of the photographic portrait one by one, project by project, letting my practice respond experimentally to both the theoretical research and the situation in which it is conceived. I move from still to moving and back again, through performance, text and sound, in an attempt to find that elusive embodied connection between subject matter and audience.

prepared by John E. Ward, Mark E. Connelly, Avram K. Tetewsky. / Final report / Bibliography: p. 188-193. / "July 31, 1978." -- "September, 1978."--Cover. "Submitted to: Transportation Systems Center, Department of Transportation, Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA 02142." / DOT-TSC-1274 M.I.T. Project. 84492