Between 1946 and 1948, American photographer Margaret Bourke-White traveled to India while on assignments for Life magazine. Since the late 1940s, a photograph from these assignments that depicts three men sitting in an ornately decorated room has appeared in several publications and exhibitions under variations of the title A Moneylender’s House (1947). Though Bourke-White is traditionally categorized as a documentary photojournalist, her photograph exhibits motifs similar to those seen in European Orientalist paintings from the nineteenth century. Considering recent scholarship that has expanded the temporal and geographical parameters of the Orientalist photography genre, this thesis analyzes the “documentary” photograph, A Moneylender’s House, in its varied exhibition and publication contexts to determine whether they present the photographic subjects from a “nonrepressive and nonmanipulative perspective” (one that Edward Said suggests might provide an “alternative” to Orientalism), or reinforce the “Self/Other” binary at the core of Orientalism.

This thesis proposes that California contemporary photographer Catherine Opie's Being and Having series (1991) and her Portrait series (1993-1996) parody the constraining binary gender discourse and stereotypes that emanate from it. In her art Opie uses familiar codes and identity discourses associated with traditional portrait photography and typological photographs to promote a postmodern and fluid model of gender identity. Her manipulation of photographic technique and subject matter validates cultural stereotypes of gender at the same time that it destabilizes them. Opie also simultaneously highlights fallacies such as the presumed objectivity and evidential force that is associated with the discourse of portrait photography as a documentary field. By presenting her portraits of lesbians to broad-based audiences in such a blatant and stylized manner, Opie comments on the limitations of society's continued reliance on gender non-nativity and physiognomic modes of identifying communities.

The paper deals with the development of the Czech journalistic sport photography from mid 20th century until recent time. Conditions that influenced the work of sports photographers are mapped, whether it was technical equipment, political constraints or other relevant facts. The paper mentions key events that have had importance in the Czech sports photography. The very beginnings of the Czech sports photography are described, too, to add context with the period followed. Furthermore, some noteworthy cases are mentioned, such as career change of a professional sportsman to a sport photographer. Ethically doubtful practices, once quite frequent, are followed, too. Another infrequently studied area of interest is discussed, which is the phenomenon of successful pictures of neglected events. The paper also provides the reader with a list of the foremost Czech sports photographers, a quantitative analysis of sport photos in the Rude Pravo daily (name later changed to Pravo). Main moments of change are studied from the point of view of the extent of the sport photography on the pages of Czech dailies. Since this topic has not been extensively covered by books, an important part of the paper is based on original interviews with veteran Czech sport photographers, including Stanislav Tereba, the only Czech winner...

The artist's process in which she examines the built environment through the medium of black and white photography. By tracing the trajectory of her awareness of architecture from her early career as a dancer, to the making of photographic images, the artist illuminates the process of deconstructing architectural and pictorial space into fragmented yet illusionistically convincing photographic montages. Influenced by the urban localities in which she dwells, she tells the story of being captivated by the post-industrial landscape of Williamsburg, Brookyn, NY, followed by landing in New Orleans and her fascination with post-Katrina architecture. Grounded in the analog techniques of traditional black and white photography, Levitsky describes the various means by which she alters her images to create visionary reconstructions of buildings in transitional states.

Thesis (M. Tech.) - Dept. of Visual Arts and Design, Faculty of Human Sciences - Vaal University of Technology. / The digital manipulation of images that are presented as photographs in the media raises issues of interpretation and the possible deception of viewers. The central research question of this study was whether training in the visual arts improves awareness of digital image manipulation of photographs. Secondary aims of the research were to investigate correlations between visual production literacy training and awareness of digital image manipulation of photographs as opposed to general visual literacy training. Secondary aims also include the !investigation of attitudes to the manipulation of photographs in relation to different viewing contexts and various levels of manipulation. The literature review provides background information and theoretical frameworks on the nature of the photographic message and how it is read primarily from a semiotic perspective. A further investigation was done into literature regarding the use of attitudes towards and ethical issues surrounding digital manipulation of photographs. In addition, a review of literature on visual literacy supports the argument that awareness of digital manipulation of photographs should and can be improved. For the empirical component of the study, a total of 145 students at the Vaal University of Technology with low, medium and high visual literacy training participated on a voluntary basis. Both qualitative and quantitative data was gathered through a digitally administered questionnaire on six visual images, each manipulated to a different degree. The results show that production literacy, especially specific training in digital image manipulation software, emerged as the main variable to be significantly (beta coefficient = 0.051; Pearson's r value = 0.436) associated with awareness of manipulation techniques as opposed to general visual literacy (standardised regression coefficieFlt = 0.436; Pearson's r = 0.051 ). Findings regarding attitudes to manipulation and the impact of viewing context show no difference between groups. Emanating from these results possibilities for further research were formulated.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (History of Art), 2017 / This research was instigated by a collection of uncollected portraits (completed and incomplete), photographs, letters, papers, documents, passbooks, and other materials, left behind when an airbrush portraiture studio, The Aqua Portrait Studio, closed in about 1998 after fifty years of continuous business. The portraits were created by enlarging small original photos – sometimes from two separate sources – and then colouring them with an airbrush and other materials. Because of the nature of the airbrush technique, it was possible to change the original image completely: to clothe the sitters in completely imaginary attire, for example, and pose them together with someone they had possibly never been photographed with. This process gave rise to a genre in which people could re-imagine themselves, enact other personas. Because the fifty years of existence of this studio almost coincided with the years of apartheid (the studio was open from about 1950 to about 1998), it seemed that the collection of uncollected images and notes left behind could be a source of rich information about the people who were the studio's clients, the process of acquiring airbrushed portraits, and the social and historical context in which those involved lived. I start with three fundamental questions: Since this portraiture form grew so exponentially in popularity, especially during the apartheid years, what specific significance and meaning had it taken on for the communities who were buying the portraits? What need was it meeting? What can we learn about these lives from this collection? The research takes two forms. First, it closely interrogates the material objects in the collection; and second, it tracks the routes of clients and salesmen to what were some of the former homelands of the northern part of South Africa. Both these investigations attempt to understand the possible roles and contribution of these pictures to the construction and reconstruction of self-identity under apartheid. / XL2018

University of the Witwatersrand Masters Research Report History of Art 31 March 2015 / Landscape representations in Western art have long stood as metaphors for power relations inscribed on the earth, encoding imperial aspirations, national identity, poetic and aesthetic experiences about humankind, nature and the environment. However, contemporary landscape imagery of large-scale industrial, and particularly mining sites, have come to signify, pre-dominantly through the medium of photography, meta-narratives that go beyond the political, economic, and environmental power relations historically endemic to landscape representation. Indeed, I suggest they constitute the formation of a sub-genre within the category of Landscape. Mining activities characterise extensive landscape interventions, often with catastrophic results both above and below ground. Perhaps a mined landscape more than any other, exemplifies not only the interwoven political and economic power relations inscribed upon the land, but also testifies to the underlying pathology of the land. Contemporary landscape studies cut across disciplines and go beyond the apprehension of surface, taking into account the geological as well social histories of land, and thus signal a shift in the aesthetic experience of land, both emotionally and intellectually, and consequently the way in which land is made visible. The visualisation of these land sites through imagery has precipitated an interface of aesthetic experience that simultaneously makes visible the politics symbolically encoded in the landscape itself, and the politics that impact viewership and reception. Nevertheless, accompanying the need to make visible those land sites hugely modified by mineral extraction, from both a historical and current perspective, is an unprecedented urgency that is weighted by a political anxiety over future implications of such land interventions. This anxiety is driven by the spectral nature of mined landscapes. Although monumental in scale, mined landscapes are often ‘not seen’, partly because they exist in restricted zones or are located underground, but often they are rendered invisible through a process of assimilation and naturalisation. A case in point has been the collective presence of mine dumps along Johannesburg’s southern periphery, and which, now in the process of being re-cycled, form the focus of my selected case study, an image by British photographer, Jason Larkin and titled Re-Mining Dump 20 (2012). By seeking to bring sites of mining activity into public consciousness, contemporary representations of mined landscapes also mediate current relations between humankind and the natural environment. As an agent of mediation, I propose that an image of a mined landscape functions as an interface. By situating Larkin’s image within a theoretical framework motivated by Jacques Rancière’s politics of aesthetics and Malcolm Andrews and W.J.T. Mitchell’s landscape theory, I proceed with my investigation in the form of a two-part interrogation: one that places emphasis on theory followed by a practical, creative response to Larkin’s image by way of repeat photography of Dump 20 and its surrounds. To demonstrate the concept of interface, I ‘excavate’ the aesthetic experience of Dump 20 as both sensory apprehension and through Rancière’s lens of emancipated viewership. There is an aesthetic quality of the sublime that appears to pervade visual representations of mined landscapes. Described as industrial sublime, toxic sublime or even apocalyptic sublime, the attention-holding quality these images exercise, through a strategy of aesthetic appeal, contribute to a politics of visibility by subversively implicating the viewer as a member of the human race. Global citizenship overrides national identity in these landscape representations, disrupting a sense of belonging with one of complicit participation in the formation of mined landscapes through reliance on mineral extraction for manufacturing consumer goods. Not only do representations of mined landscapes demand a rethink about aesthetic appreciation of landscape imagery and the endemic political connotations implicated in an understanding of landscape. They actively seek to penetrate surface visibility of land by taking into account the very pathology of land as an on going narrative of human and environmental interaction and life continually in process.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar a cultura amadora fotográfica na virada do século XIX, tendo como contexto Petrópolis e Rio de Janeiro e tomando como fio condutor a produção e atuação de Alberto de Sampaio, um advogado e apaixonado fotógrafo amador, pertencente à elite da cidade serrana. São examinados os integrantes dessas atividades, suas qualificações sociais e culturais, práticas e objetivos, competência (econômica, material, técnica e outras), seus produtos, usos e funções, referenciais (critérios, normas, valores e seus veículos), suas formas de associação e interação. Três séries de fotografias tematizando a natureza, a família e a cidade permitem concluir que fotografar não era um registro documental mas uma prática comunicacional, completada pela circulação familiar e entre amigos, homens cultivados e refinados, sedimentando laços e garantindo solidariedade, tudo alimentado pelo afeto, pela diversão, pelo lúdico e pelo humor. Era um propósito que não poderia assentar-se em outros fundamentos, como os de natureza política, econômica e profissional. / This piece of work aims to analize the amateur photographic culture in the turning of the Nineteenth century, using as context Petropolis and Rio de Janeiro and taking as guiding principles Alberto Sampaio\'s production and performance, a lawyer and passionate amateur photographer, who was part of the mountain range city\'s elite. It will be examined the components of such activities, their social and cultural qualifications, practices and objectives, competence (economical, material, technical and others), their products, uses and functions, frames of reference(criteria, rules, values and their vehicles), their forms of association and interaction. Three series of photographies using as a theme, the nature, the family, and the city allow to conclude that photographing was not a documentation recording, but a communication practice, completed by the circulation in family and among friends, refined and educated men, settling bonds and assuring solidarity, everything powered by affection, by enjoyment, by the ludic, by humour. It was a purpose that could not be settled in other basic rules as of political, economical or professional natures.

Thesis (MTech (Nature Conservation))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / Largely due to anthropogenic causes, biodiversity and particularly species diversity is changing at an extraordinary rate, with declines in species abundance, community composition and extinction risk being of crucial concern. Monitoring of state variables of biodiversity such as species richness and occupancy are of significant importance in determining the severity of threats placed on species, populations and communities. As a non-invasive monitoring method camera traps are noted as being an effective, accurate and rapid means of compiling species richness estimates of medium to large terrestrial mammals. However, crucial elements of camera trap survey design are rarely empirically addressed, which has questioned the need for a standardised camera trapping protocol. Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) is a protected area that is under serious anthropogenic pressure through urban and peri-urban development. Although it is the last refuge for a number of large mammal species on the Cape Peninsula, current mammalian species richness knowledge within the TMNP are limited. Accurate and current species richness estimates are therefore needed within TMNP and more specifically the Cape of Good Hope (CoGH), which exclusively hosts a number of medium and large mammal species. The aims of this study were to optimise a camera survey protocol for the Peninsula region, with a focus on camera density, placement and survey duration that will enable accurate estimations of medium to large mammal species richness and occupancy.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:10:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carolina Guerra Liberio.pdf: 1815326 bytes, checksum: 539ae9e252ce5e117c3bc8d0a7aba701 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-05-23 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Maranhão / The present study discusses, from the perspective of the photographic dispositif, the changes in the photographic act since the development and popularization of digital photography. The research rescues the historical development of photography during the 20th century as a way to understand the changes in the photographic praxis until nowadays. The conventions and prefigurations of the photographic act were discussed, as also were the relations between those conventions and the actual practice of digital photography. The method utilized in this study was based in the concept of geneology as used by Michel Foucault (2002), in which it is affirmed the need to historically research the fields of force that compose the dispositif. The concept of dispositif is utilized to discuss the characteristics of the photographic equipment, based not only on the works of Foucault, but also on Agamben s (2008). As a technological basis for many processes of image production, photography has a fundamental role in midst the means of social communication. The changes from the analogical to the digital process in photography bring implications that affect not only amateur day-to-day uses, but also the role of photography in the means of mass communication. A example of this is the loss of trust in the longly self alleged objectivity claim of the photographic image, specially present in the context of photojournalism, that has changed the way society perceives the photographic image: more and more, photography is treated as a discourse, and less as a testemony. The hypothesis of this study is that the digital technology in connection to the photographic dispositif alters the role of the photographic image in society and that this change is inserted in a wider social-cultral context of modifications in the ways messages are produced and distributed in the digital age / O presente texto aborda, a partir de um estudo do dispositivo fotográfico, as mudanças no ato fotográfico a partir do surgimento e popularização da fotografia digital. A pesquisa partiu de um resgate histórico do desenvolvimento da fotografia ao longo do século XX, como forma de compreender as mudanças na práxis fotográfica. Discutiu-se que convenções e prefigurações estiveram presentes no ato de fotografar ao longo do século XX, e que relação elas tem com as atuais praticas da fotografia digital. A metodologia da pesquisa foi da ordem da genealogia, conforme definida por Michel Foucault (2002), em que se afirma a necessidade de pesquisar historicamente as linhas de força que compõe o campo dos dispositivos. O conceito de dispositivo é utilizado para discutir as características do equipamento fotográfico, com base não somente na obra de Foucault, mas também na de Agamben (2008). Como base técnica de diversos processos de produção de imagens, a fotografia ocupa um lugar fundamental dentro dos meios de comunicação. A mudança do processo analógico para o digital traz implicações que afetam não somente usuários amadores, mas também os grandes veículos de mídia. Um dos exemplos é a perda da tão alegada objetividade ou verdade fotográfica, especialmente no contexto do fotojornalismo, que tem modificado de forma geral a percepção da fotografia em sociedade: cada vez mais, trata-se a foto como um discurso, e não como índice ou testemunho. O estudo parte da hipótese de que a tecnologia digital em conexão com o dispositivo fotográfico altera o estatuto da imagem fotográfica em sociedade e se insere em um contexto sócio-cultural mais amplo de mudanças nas formas de produção e distribuição de mensagens, a partir das recentes tecnologias binárias