Évoquer l'existence d'un imaginaire photographique pose un problème d'ordre idéologique quant au statut de la photographie. Pour tenter de démontrer l'existence de cet imaginaire, il faut se pencher sur un mouvement qui, en son temps, réfléchit à cette notion de manière fondamentale: le mouvement symboliste. Aussi est-il nécessaire de se demander en quoi le symbolisme est fondateur de l’imaginaire photographique ? A cette époque la photographie est largement intégrée dans un système positiviste, elle est la technique scientifique d’enregistrement par excellence, ayant pour trait caractéristique la mise hors circuit de la subjectivité de l’observateur. Le symbolisme, quant à lui, est à son apogée, autour des années 1880-90. Il va opposer au principe scientifique de classification, fondé sur la séparation et la différence, une conception philosophique tournée vers la recherche d’unité. Or les symbolistes, vont se servir de l’outil photographique. D’une part, ils réinvestissent d’un imaginaire et d’un esprit critique les photographies les plus scientifiques et « objectives » de l’époque. D’autre part certains deviennent eux-mêmes photographes et vont instituer la photographie comme une véritable expérience créatrice et poétique. Ces concepts demeurent plus ou moins vifs sur le long terme. Un ensemble de symboles et de démarches ont été réinvestis par la révolution surréaliste. Ceux-ci restent présents et fondateurs de la photographie contemporaine par leur réactualisation. Cette dernière ferait véritablement appel aux potentiels de l’imaginaire photographique déjà mis en place par le Symbolisme, remettant dès lors en question la manière impérialiste de voir et concevoir le réel. Le but de cette recherche, n’est pas d’affirmer que toute photographie est symboliste mais de déterminer quelle peut être aujourd’hui l’influence du symbolisme en photographie, à travers la mise en œuvre de concepts communs. Cette recherche se fonde sur une interrogation concernant l’imaginaire photographique. / To refer to the existence of a photographical imagination arises an ideological issue when bringing the status of photography into question. To try to demonstrate the existence of this imagination; consideration should be given to a movement fundamentally reflecting the notion of the symbolist movement. Therefore, would it be necessary to consider how symbolism is founder of the photographical imagination? At that time, photography widely fits into a positivist system, it is the best recording scientific technique. Hence, photography has emerged from the middle of the 19th century as a new type of objectivity whose main characteristic is the exclusion of the observer's subjectivity. As for Symbolism, it reached its peak around 80-90s. It will oppose a searching for unity philosophical conception with scientific classification principle, based on separation and difference. Despite that, Symbolists have chosen to use the photographical tool. On the one hand, they took into account the most scientific and objective photographs over that period in relation with imagination and critical acumen. On the other hand, some of them became themselves photographers and will even institute photography as a real creative and practical experience. However, these concepts remain more or less alive on the long run. A set of symbols and methods were taken into account by the surrealist revolution. Those remain present at the origin of the contemporary photography by their re-actualization. The contemporary photography would really require the photographical imagination potential that were already set up by Symbolism. Therefore, the imperialist way of feeling and imagining reality would be thrown back into question. The aim of this research is not to assert that photography is symbolist but to determine which influence of symbolism about photography may currently be through the use of common concepts. All in all, this research is based on questioning about the photographical imagination.

Criador e Criatura: a invenção de uma persona-objeto trata da criação de uma persona, tendo como objetivo apresentar uma possibilidade poética em fotografia e vídeo. Toma por base o conceito de terceiro analítico na psicanálise, apresentando a “ferramenta persona” e sua produção resultante, assim como discute os aportes e os desdobramentos poéticos trazidos pelos meios escolhidos para sua criação, permeados pelos conceitos de máscara levantados por Hans Belting (2017) e Paulo Sérgio Faitanin (2006). / Creator and Creature: the invention of a persona-object deals with the creation of a persona, having as its objective to introduce a poetic possibility in photography and video. It takes as reference the concept of the analytical third in psychoanalysis, introducing the “persona tool” and its resulting works, as well as discusses the poetic contributions and unfoldings brought by such mediums to its creation, permeated by the concepts of mask brought up by Hans Belting (2017) and Paulo Sergio Faitanin (2006).

This thesis accompanies a practice as research doctoral project that investigates the perceptual mechanisms and conceptions of land as a site of constant change. It utilises photographic practice as a form of visual communication. The aim is to examine the roles of movement and memory in the perceptual experiences of the environment through a phenomenological framework that involves the consideration of the concepts of place and space from a temporal perspective. The principal theme is how the moving and changing environment can be interpreted through the stasis of photography and what this implies about the individual’s relationship to it. The research methodology is a Rhizomatic multi‐site and multi‐process approach, utilising various methods and investigating site types appropriately as an interwoven practice. This has resulted in five separate bodies of work that deal with different forms of movement. The work employs close range photogrammetry techniques liberated from the empirical traditions of archaeological photography and time‐lapse to investigate the human‐scaled aerial view and visually interpret embodiment in the environment. An exhibition, titled Continuum derived from this practice was also shown at Avenue Gallery, Northampton University, UK, from 27th October 2014 ‐ 7th November 2014. A catalogue of works, titled In Flux; Land, Photography and Temporality accompanies this thesis as a PDF on the disc provided (appendix # 1). The research concludes that a consideration of time and space as durational and flowing can be interpreted through the stasis of photography. Through this the changing nature of the environment can be investigated. This is achieved by extending the duration of photographic processes and making them evident in the resulting works. It is also enhanced through curatorial sequencing in a body of work that mimics environmental temporal experience as perceived by the mobile individual.

Intermediality has become an umbrella term for a heterogeneous group of concepts as diverse as the creation of an entirely new medium and the mere quotation of a work from one medium in another. Intermedial analyses of specific film texts have appeared sporadically but have shed remarkable light on the influence of other media on film narrative, structure and visual style. This PhD takes intermediality to be, as Irina Rajewsky describes it, instances in which film ‘thematises, evokes or imitates elements or structures of another, conventionally distinct medium through the use of its own media-specific means.’ Using this definition as a starting point, this project applies the concept of intermediality to films that deal specifically with arts and media within their narratives, or that are adaptations from another medium, across the American independent cinema landscape since 1990. In this way, a typology of media interaction and intermediality within film texts is developed in relation to their relative position in the American ‘indie’ tradition. Although the thesis uses a primarily industrial definition of ‘independence’, this work also applies a number of criteria constituting a particular ‘indie’ aesthetic to these films, as outlined by experts in the field like Geoff King and Michael Z Newman. This enables additional links to be identified in regard to whether intermediality is utilised differently in particularly ‘alternative’ or more ‘mainstream’ film content. This methodology has demonstrated that intermediality plays a significant role in many American ‘indie’ films strategies of differentiation from the mainstream. Additionally, correlations have been discovered such as particular distributors’ preference for contacting specific types of media, as well their willingness (or otherwise) to engage in such potentially alienating and experimental content as intermediality and metareference.

Photo enhancement is an important and practical problem in computer vision. In real-word applications, there are massive needs for photo quality enhancement. Image cropping and image color enhancement are two common operations used to improve the visual quality of photographs. By learning from human examples, we propose automatic photo enhancement method which implements these two fundamental operations. / For image cropping, we present an automatic cropping technique that accounts for the two primary considerations of people when they crop: removal of distracting content, and enhancement of overall composition. Our approach utilizes a large training set consisting of photos before and after cropping by expert photographers to learn how to evaluate these two factors in a crop. In contrast to the many methods that exist for general assessment of image quality, ours specifically examines differences between the original and cropped photo in solving for the crop parameters. To this end, several novel image features are proposed to model the changes in image content and composition when a crop is applied. The effectiveness of each feature is empirically analyzed in determining a final feature set for crop computation. Our experiments demonstrate improvements of our method over recent cropping algorithms on a broad range of images. / We also present a machine-learned ranking approach for automatically enhancing the color of a photograph. Unlike previous techniques that train on pairs of images before and after adjustment by a human user, our method takes into account the intermediate steps taken in the enhancement process, which provide detailed information on the person's color preferences. To make use of this data, we formulate the color enhancement task as a learning-to-rank problem in which ordered pairs of images are used for training, and then various color enhancements of a novel input image can be evaluated from their corresponding rank values. From the parallels between the decision tree structures we use for ranking and the decisions made by a human during the editing process, we posit that breaking a full enhancement sequence into individual steps can facilitate training. Our experiments show that this approach compares well to existing methods for automatic color enhancement. / Yan, Jianzhou. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-115). / Title from PDF title page (viewed on 30, November, 2016).

by Wai Leung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-150). / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1. --- Image Selection/Segmentation --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2. --- Background Image Generation --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3. --- Thesis Organisation --- p.6 / Chapter 2. --- Fundamentals of Digital Image Segmentation --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1. --- Edge-based Segmentation methods --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1.1. --- Edge detection --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1.1.1. --- Gradient operators --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1.1.2. --- Compass operators --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1.1.3. --- Laplace operators and zero crossings --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1.1.4. --- Stochastic gradients --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1.1.5. --- Optimal edge detectors --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.2. --- Boundary extraction --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.2.1. --- Contour following --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.2.2. --- Heuristic graph searching --- p.14 / Chapter 2.1.2.3. --- Dynamic programming --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2. --- Region-based Segmentation Methods --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2.1. --- Thresholding --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2.2. --- Region growing --- p.16 / Chapter 2.2.3. --- Region splitting and merging --- p.17 / Chapter 2.2.4. --- Texture segmentation --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.4.1. --- Spectral approaches --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.4.2. --- Statistical methods --- p.21 / Chapter 2.3. --- Works on Colour Image Segmentation --- p.23 / Chapter 3. --- Current Selection Tools for Image Retouching --- p.24 / Chapter 3.1. --- Selection by Region Growing --- p.24 / Chapter 3.2. --- Selection by Edge Finding --- p.26 / Chapter 3.3. --- Some Conclusions --- p.27 / Chapter 4. --- A New Segmentation Tool for Image Retouching --- p.28 / Chapter 4.1. --- Requirement and Development Strategy of the Selection Tool --- p.28 / Chapter 4.2. --- Basic Assumptions --- p.29 / Chapter 4.3. --- Algorithm of the Image Selector --- p.30 / Chapter 4.3.1. --- Boundary representation --- p.30 / Chapter 4.3.2. --- Colour edge detection --- p.31 / Chapter 4.3.2.1. --- Colour gradient --- p.31 / Chapter 4.3.2.2. --- Edge detector --- p.32 / Chapter 4.4. --- Boundary Searching --- p.34 / Chapter 4.4.1. --- The searching algorithm - A* --- p.35 / Chapter 4.4.2. --- The cost function and heuristic for A* algorithm --- p.37 / Chapter 4.4.2.1. --- Pixel cost formulation --- p.38 / Chapter A. --- The reference dependent function y --- p.39 / Chapter 1. --- The three similarity functions --- p.42 / Chapter 2. --- The similarity thresholds --- p.44 / Chapter 3. --- The n-reference dependent function --- p.45 / Chapter B. --- The reference independent function f --- p.46 / Chapter C. --- The actual pixel cost function W --- p.46 / Chapter 4.4.2.2. --- The heuristic function h --- p.47 / Chapter 4.5. --- Implementation --- p.48 / Chapter 4.5.1. --- Work-flow of the image selection tool --- p.48 / Chapter 4.5.2. --- Implementation of the user-input stage --- p.51 / Chapter 4.5.3. --- Implementation of the boundary searching phase --- p.54 / Chapter 4.5.3.1. --- OPEN and CLOSE lists --- p.56 / Chapter 4.5.3.2. --- Tracing back searching path --- p.57 / Chapter 4.5.3.3. --- Edge map --- p.58 / Chapter 4.5.3.4. --- Cost calculation --- p.59 / Chapter 4.5.4. --- Implementation of the boundary connection phase --- p.61 / Chapter 4.6. --- Experiments and Results --- p.63 / Chapter 4.6.1. --- Features exploration --- p.63 / Chapter 4.6.1.1. --- Cost function of the boundary tracer --- p.63 / Chapter 4.6.1.2. --- Reference sensitivity --- p.73 / Chapter 4.6.1.3. --- Boundary connection --- p.75 / Chapter 4.6.2. --- Comparison with current image selection tools --- p.76 / Chapter 4.7. --- Discussion --- p.87 / Chapter 4.8. --- Further Improvement --- p.91 / Chapter 4.8.1. --- A* algorithm --- p.91 / Chapter 4.8.2. --- Colour space --- p.92 / Chapter 4.8.3. --- Improvement in processing speed and quality --- p.93 / Chapter 5. --- Background Image Generation by Image Interpolation --- p.95 / Chapter 5.1. --- Current Filling Tools for Background Image Generation --- p.96 / Chapter 5.1.1. --- The Stamp tool --- p.96 / Chapter 5.1.2. --- The Gradient Fill tool --- p.96 / Chapter 5.2. --- Possible Approaches --- p.98 / Chapter 5.2.1. --- Surface Approximation --- p.98 / Chapter 5.2.2. --- Region Growing and Filling --- p.99 / Chapter 5.3. --- A New Image Interpolation Tool --- p.101 / Chapter 5.3.1. --- Problem analysis and requirement specifications --- p.101 / Chapter 5.3.2. --- The interpolation strategy --- p.103 / Chapter 5.3.3. --- Process overview of the image interpolation --- p.107 / Chapter 5.3.4. --- Data representation --- p.108 / Chapter 5.3.5. --- Implementation --- p.110 / Chapter 5.3.5.1. --- User-input - the first stage --- p.110 / Chapter 5.3.5.2. --- Interpolation preparation - the second stage --- p.112 / Chapter A. --- Boundary list rearrangement --- p.113 / Chapter B. --- Boundary parameterisation --- p.114 / Chapter C. --- Area marking --- p.114 / Chapter D. --- Colour pattern preparation --- p.115 / Chapter 5.3.5.3. --- Interpolation - the third stage --- p.118 / Chapter A. --- Filling curve generation --- p.119 / Chapter 1. --- Linear filling curve generation --- p.119 / Chapter 2. --- Non-linear filling curve generation --- p.120 / Chapter B. --- Colour pattern interpolation --- p.125 / Chapter 5.3.5.4. --- Post-filling - the fourth stage --- p.127 / Chapter 5.3.5.5. --- A working example --- p.128 / Chapter 5.3.6. --- Results --- p.130 / Chapter 5.3.7. --- Discussion --- p.140 / Chapter 5.3.8. --- Limitations and future improvement --- p.141 / Chapter 6. --- Conclusions --- p.144 / Appendix --- p.147 / References --- p.148

Orientador: Fernando Silva Teixeira Filho / Banca: Dolores Cristina Gomes Galindo / Banca: Angela Aparecida Donini / Resumo: A partir dos estudos queer, busquei investigar a obra Symphony of Erotic Icons do fotógrafo brasileiro Alair Gomes (1921-1992). Engenheiro de formação, Alair transitou por diversos campos, como a escrita de diários íntimos, a Filosofia da Ciência e a crítica de arte, entre outros, tendo seu encontro com a fotografia se dado somente na década de 1960. O foco de seu trabalho fotográfico é o corpo masculino, sendo considerado o precursor na abordagem do homoerotismo na fotografia brasileira. Embora tenha se dedicado ao trabalho com a fotografia por mais de duas décadas, constituindo uma obra de dimensões exorbitantes, com 15 mil fotos e 150 mil negativos, Alair fez parte de um rol de artistas cuja invisibilidade impediu que ele se tornasse contemporâneo de seu próprio tempo. A escolha de Alair nesta pesquisa justifica-se pela relevância deste artista na fotografia, mas também por contemplar temas importantes para a Psicologia, tais como o corpo e o erotismo, em especial o masculino, foco desta investigação. O objetivo geral dessa pesquisa foi explorar como se dão os processos de construção do erotismo e das corporalidades masculinas na Symphony of Erotic Icons e cartografar os elementos de uma possível dissidência em relação à heterossexualidade compulsória vigente na época. Realizada nas décadas de 1960 e 1970, a Sinfonia é um conjunto de 1.767 fotos de nus masculinos. Alair dividiu a sequência em 5 partes: Allegro, Andantino, Andante, Adágio e Finale. Sua motivação... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: From the Queer studies, I sought to investigate the work of the Brazilian photographer Alair Gomes' Symphony of Erotic Icons. Graduated in Engineering, Alair transited through several fields, such as the writing of private diaries, the Philosophy of Science and art criticism, among others, having his encounter with photography only in the 1960s. The focus of his photographic work Is the male body, being considered the precursor in the approach of the homoerotism in Brazilian photography. Even when he had dedicated in the working with photography for more than two decades, constituting a work of exorbitant dimensions, with 15,000 photos and 150,000 negatives, Alair was part of a group of artists whose invisibility prevented him from becoming contemporary of his own time. Alair's choice in this research is justified by the relevance of this artist in photography, but also by contemplating important themes for Psychology, such as the body and eroticism, especially the masculine one, the focus of this research. The general objective of this research was to explore the processes of construction of eroticism and male corporalities in the Symphony of Erotic Icons and to cartograph the elements of a possible dissent in relation to the compulsory heterosexuality in force at the time. Created in the 1960s and 1970s, the Symphony is a collection of 1,767 male nude photos. Alair divided the sequence into 5 parts: Allegro, Andantino, Andante, Adágio and Finale. His motivation for the... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

This thesis tackles a problem of recovering a high resolution image from a single compressed frame. A new image-prior that is devised based on Pearson type VII density is integrated with a Markov Random Field model which has desirable robustness properties. A fully automated hyper-parameter estimation procedure for this approach is developed, which makes it advantageous in comparison with alternatives. Although this recovery algorithm is very simple to implement, it achieves statistically significant improvements over previous results in under-determined problem settings, and it is able to recover images that contain texture. This advancement opens up the opportunities for several potential extensions, of which we pursue two: (i) Most of previous work does not consider any specific extra information to recover the signal. Thus, this thesis exploits the similarity between the signal of interest and a consecutive motionless frame to address this problem. Additional information of similarity that is available is incorporated into a probabilistic image-prior based on the Pearson type VII Markov Random Field model. Results on both synthetic and real data of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in both compressed setting and classical super-resolution experiments. (ii) This thesis also presents a multi-task approach for signal recovery by sharing higher-level hyperparameters which do not relate directly to the actual content of the signals of interest but only to their statistical characteristics. Our approach leads to a very simple model and algorithm that can be used to simultaneously recover multiple

Esta dissertação parte do preto, da escuridão e do vazio como lugar onde, na ausência de referências do outro, não sobra outra opção além de olhar para dentro. Ou melhor, olhar para o que escapole de dentro de si frente à experiência da ausência. O processo apresentado aqui pensa sobre a origem da imagem, sobre quanto dela é descritiva e limitada ao registro do olhar no mundo e quanto dela tem origem na imaginação, na experiência particular de cada um. Pensa também na relação entre imagem e linguagem, por meio de fragmentos de fotografias e textos. Navega entre possibilidades de lugar, de estar, de ser, transitando pela possibilidade de transbordar cenas mais imagináveis do que propriamente visíveis. O resultado da pesquisa é um livro que chamei de Preto, composto de textos e fotografias realizadas entre 2009 e 2013, durante residências artísticas em Torres Vedras (Portugal), Pune e Bangalore (Índia), Copenhague (Dinamarca), Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo e Recife (Brasil). Proponho \"Janeiro 2009\" como uma introdução ao que estou chamando de livro-experiência, ao livro aberto a leituras diversas. Essa narrativa, em que conto a experiência de estar no breu absoluto durante 5 ou 10 minutos, é o ponto de partida tanto para as imagens (fotografias, luz branca no preto do escuro) quanto para os textos (palavras, tinta preta no papel branco). Preto tem a intenção de ser mole; de alguma forma, moldável ao manuseio, ao leitor. Um caderno de imagens, ou memórias, que surgem entre fade in e fade outs, entre luzes e sombras. Clarões na escuridão e formas breves / This dissertation sets out from the black, the darkness and from the void as a place where, in the absence of references to the other, there remains no choice but to look within. Or rather, to look at what slips out from within, faced by the experience of absence. The process presented here contemplates the origin of the image, about how much of it is descriptive and limited to the registering of the view in the world and how much of it has its origin in the imagination, the private experience of each individual. It also contemplates the relationship between image and language, through fragments of photographs and texts. It navegates between possibilities of place, of living, of being, transiting through the possibility of overflowing scenes more imaginable than actually visible. The result of this research is a book wich I named Black, composed of texts and photographs taken between 2009 and 2013, during artistic residencies in Torres Vedras (Portugal), Pune and Bangalore (India), Copenhagen (Denmark), Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Recife (Brazil). I propose \"January 2009\" as an introduction to what I am calling a bookexperience, a book that is open to various readings. This narrative, in wich I tell of the experience of being in absolute pitch-blackness for 5 or 10 minutes, is the starting point for the images (photographs, white light in the black of darkness) as well as the texts (words, black ink on white paper). Black has the intent of being soft; in some way moldable by handling, moldable to the reader. A notebook of images, or memories that arise between fade ins and fade outs, between light and shadow. Flashes in the darkness and brief forms.

Thesis (B.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1978. / Bibliography: leaf 20. / by Peter E. Clay. / B.S.