My purpose in entering the UCF MFA program was to further explore and develop my passion for photography. During my time in the program, I developed my methodology--from having the traditional photography paradigm ingrained in my mind (and wanting to fit into it) to accepting and valuing my own unique process. I construct installations using diverse imagery and non-traditional presentation. In my installations, one may witness a reflection of the contemporary pace of image perception--fragmented, complex, abundant, and disordered. Together, images and their arrangements are used to create a unified piece that satisfies a new system within apparent disorder. The resulting installations summon the sensation of thinking and processing information in a new way, allowing for re-contextualization of fragmented imagery. Technology has pushed photography to evolve. Previously held traditional notions of photography as art (e.g., "single telling moment" photographs and similar subject matter) are now being confronted by a vernacular of "many telling moments". The current state of the art world is in flux, and is greatly influenced by the faster pace set by technology; I coin our new vernacular Image Culture.

Focal stacking is a technique that allows us to create images with a large depth of field, where everything in the scene is sharp and clear. However, creating such images is not easy, as it requires taking multiple pictures at different focus settings and then blending them together. In this paper, we present a novel approach to blending a focal stack using a special type of autoencoder, which is a neural network that can learn to compress and reconstruct data. Our autoencoder consists of several parts, each of which processes one input image and passes its information to the final part, which fuses them into one output image. Unlike other methods, our approach is capable of inpainting and denoising resulting in sharp, clean all-in-focus images. Our approach does not require any prior training or a large dataset, which makes it fast and effective. We evaluate our method on various kinds of images and compare it with other widely used methods. We demonstrate that our method can produce superior focal stacked images with higher accuracy and quality. This paper reveals a new and promising way of using a neural network to aid in microphotography, microscopy, and visual computing, by enhancing the quality of focal stacked images.

This paper will discuss the creation of my artwork, which has been inspired by my experiences and understandings of Catholicism and its icons. I will consider how iconography works in art, its influence, and how and why I have created this artwork dealing with my beliefs. I will also refer to the works of contemporary artists Duane Michals and Michael Wesely to help explain my exhibition, which I have titled "Doubting Thomas: The Testaments."

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The intent of this thesis is to examine Jean Baudrillard’s theory of the image in both historical and philosophical terms and propose that his understanding of the image as disconnected from any sort of objective reality is an important starting point for further discussion of the photographic image. This thesis seeks to answer the question – how does Baudrillard’s theory of the photographic image shape our contemporary understanding of images, and what are the implications of his removal of the referent to reality within photographic images on mass culture, society, and the current state of image creation? This paper seeks to investigate Jean Baudrillard’s philosophy of the image and how it can be applied to various contemporary movements in photography and image generation, ultimately working towards an understanding of the photographic image as a gateway into subjective mystery rather than a confirmation of the existence or proof of an objective reality. With specific reference to the Baudrillardian ontology of the image and Baudrillard’s discussion of the disconnection between images and reality, this paper also seeks to apply Baudrillard’s severance of the referent to reality in photographic images to the contemporary state of images and discuss the alienating effect this removal has on mass culture and politics, ultimately calling for a renewal of a Baudrillardian view of the image in discussions about the image’s reality.

Obwohl das dokumentarische Bild als beglaubigte Aufzeichnung einer außermedialen Realität als Diskursgegenstand bereits seit Längerem dekonstruiert ist, scheint die Faszination am Dokumentarischen nahezu ungebrochen. Die stete Bezugnahme auf das Dokumentarische in unterschiedlichen Diskursen der Fotografie zeugt davon. Auch zahlreiche künstlerische Auseinandersetzungen rekurrieren seit den 80er-Jahren verstärkt auf dokumentarische Konzepte und Formate. Ausgehend von diesem Paradoxon, der Dekonstruktion des Dokumentarischen in Theoriekontexten und dem Wiedererstarken dokumentarischer Formate in der Fotografie und Kunst, sucht die vorliegende Arbeit nach den Ursachen einer offenkundig anhaltenden Faszination am Dokumentarischen. Dabei richtet sie den Blick speziell auf künstlerische Fotografien, die Gebrauchsweisen der Fotografie aufgreifen, welche per se mit dem Dokumentarischen affiziert werden, wie die Pressefotografie, die kriminalistische Fotografie und die Amateurfotografie. Sie zeigt, über welche Strategien das Dokumentarische dort produktiv umgesetzt wird. Lässt sich jeder Dokumentarismus erst einmal als Versuch lesen, in der Repräsentation das Reale zu verbildlichen, beziehen sich die vorgestellten künstlerischen Arbeiten von Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand, Sophie Calle und Richard Billingham zwar auf ein Begehren nach dem Realen, machen aber gleichzeitig den Verlust des Realen in ihren Erzählungen von der Wirklichkeit erfahrbar. In ihrer Ambivalenz vermitteln die künstlerischen Arbeiten ein Konzept des Dokumentarischen als mobiles System, das dieses nicht als Kategorie, Genre oder Stil festschreibt, sondern als Handlung begreift, die das permanente Ineinandergreifen von Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion des Dokumentarischen nachvollzieht. Insofern erweisen sich die Kunst und das Dokumentarische als nicht polar, denn über ihre Beziehung zum Realen kristallisiert sich dieses als das gemeinsame Dritte der beiden heraus. / Although the documentary image as authenticated record of a reality beyond the media has, as the object of discourse, long been deconstructed, the fascination with the documentary would appear to be ongoing. The constant references to the documentary in a variety of photography discourses bears witness to this. In addition, countless artistic treatments since the Eighties have referred back to documentary concepts and formats. In the light of this paradox as well as the deconstruction of the documentary in theoretical contexts and the renewed gaining of strength of documentary formats in photography and art, this study investigates the reasons for the evident persistent fascination with the documentary. In the process, artistic photographs in particular are examined which reference conventions in photography that are associated per se with the documentary, such as for example press photography, criminalistic photography, and amateur photography. The strategies by which the documentary is productively implemented are demonstrated here. If every form of documentarism can be read first of all as an attempt to express the real visually in the representation, then the artistic works by Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand, Sophie Calle and Richard Billingham that are presented here may indeed reference a desire for the real, but at the same time they make it possible in their telling of reality to experience the loss of the real. It is through their ambivalence that the artistic works convey a concept of the documentary as a mobile system that does not codify it as a category, genre or style, but rather perceives it as an act that comprehends the documentary''s constant intertwining of construction and deconstruction. As such, it is shown that art and the documentary are not polar, because through their relationship to reality this relationship is shown to crystalize out as the common third party for both.

While the role of photography in enforcing hegemonic ideologies has been amply studied, this thesis addresses the under-researched topic of how photography undermined dominant narratives in specific historical circumstances. I argue that, in the later part of the long nineteenth century, photographs were used to represent the natural world in contexts where their functions were uncertain and their capacities not clearly defined, and that these hesitations allowed for the expression of resistances to dominant social attitudes towards nature. I analyse how these divergences were articulated through three independent case studies, each addressing a corpus of photographs which has been marginalised in scholarly discourse. The case studies all concern photographs of vegetation. The first one discusses photographs produced around Fontainebleau during the Second French Empire, commonly understood as auxiliary materials for Barbizon painters, and argues that they were in fact autonomous representations, reflecting marginal modes of experiencing nature which resisted its prevailing construction as spectacle. The second case study examines a photographic series depicting Amazonian vegetation, published between 1900 and 1906, and shows how, in attempting to satisfy conflicting ideological demands, these photographs undermined the hierarchies enforced upon the natural world by colonial science. The third case study analyses photographs from an early twentieth-century environmentalist treatise, and demonstrates how, while the author's discourse seemingly complied with conventional attitudes towards nature, the photographs instituted an ethical stance opposed to early conservation's aesthetic focus and anthropocentrism. Throughout the case studies, I argue that the photographs were consubstantial to the emergence of these resistances; that dissenting representations stemmed from a tension between their producers' lived experience and the ideological frameworks which informed each context; and that this process engendered remarkable formal innovations, which are not usually associated to non-artistic images. I contend that radical renewals of visual expression occur in all representational contexts, as image producers adapt their tools or forge new ones according to circumstances, and that more attention must be paid to such visual innovations outside the field of artistic production.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2001. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South African photography in the 20th century was dominated by the documentary genre. This genre has its roots in 19th century Modernist and colonialist belief in the accuracy of the camera as a tool of representation, and faith in the camera's objectivity and ability to present empirical evidence and 'truth'. These positivist notions were carried into South African documentary practice during the apartheid era. Apartheid-era South African documentary photography was particularly focused on exposing the socio-political ills of apartheid in order to gain support for the liberation movement, both locally and abroad. It was serious and didactic in its purpose and did not allow for creative responses to the medium, as the camera was seen as a 'weapon' of the struggle. The 1990s saw the beginning of the emergence of a liberated South Africa. The documentary imperative to record and expose apartheid practices was now increasingly redundant. Photographers, particularly after the elections, were faced with a 'crisis' of sorts in documentary as the main focus of their subject had been removed. The upshot of this was that documentary photographers had to find new subjects, which they had to approach in different ways. The arrival of Postmodernism in South Africa coincided with the demise of apartheid. It had in essence been kept at bay by what seemed to be the more pressing issues of the struggle. Postmodern art and its theoretical base, post-structuralism, argued for an erosion of the previously fixed concepts of genre, and allowed for the mixing of the previously separate categories of 'documentary' and 'art'. There was a radical questioning of previously fixed constructs of race, identity, class and gender. The erosion of the documentary imperative to record allowed for more creative responses to the medium than ever before. Artists were able to experiment technically, with video, multi-media, digital photography, historical processes, colour, composite work and interactive pieces. In this thesis I explore the above-mentioned shift and situate my practical work within this contemporary paradigm. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Op die gebied van fotografie is die toneel in Suid-Afrika in die 20ste eeu deur die dokumentêre genre oorheers. Die genre het sy oorsprong in 'n Modernistiese en kolonialistiese, 19de-eeuse siening, naamlik dat die kamera 'n objektiewe en akkurate voorstellingsmiddel is waarmee empiriese bewyse ingesamel en die "waarheid" uitgebeeld kan word. Hierdie positiwistiese uitkyk is tydens die apartheidsjare op die dokumentêre praktyk in Suid-Afrika oorgedra. Tydens hierdie era was dokumentêre fotografie daarop gemik om die sosiopolitieke euwels van Suid-Afrika onder apartheid bloot te lê, ten einde sowel binnelands as buitelands vir die bevrydingsbewegings steun te werf Met hierdie gewigtige en didaktiese doel voor oë, was daar min ruimte vir 'n kreatiewe hantering van die medium, aangesien die kamera as 'n "wapen" in die stryd teen apartheid gesien is. Die 1990's het die begin van Suid-Afrika se bevryding ingelui. Die dokumentêre imperatief om apartheidsdade op rekord te stel en aan die groot klok te hang, het vervaag. Fotograwe het 'n soort "krisis" in die gesig gestaar, veral na die verkiesing, want die onderwerp van hulle fokus het verdwyn. Die resultaat was dat dokumentêre fotograwe nuwe temas moes vind, wat hulle vanuit 'n ander oogpunt moes benader. In Suid-Afrika het die koms van Postmodernisme met die ondergang van apartheid saamgeval. Voorheen is dit in wese oorskadu deur oënskynlik belangriker kwessies rondom die "struggle". Postmoderne kuns en die teoretiese grondslag daarvan, naamlik post-strukturalisme, bepleit 'n beweging weg van die vaste begrip van genre wat voorheen gegeld het. Hiervolgens raak 'n vermenging van die voorheen afsonderlike kategorieë 'dokumentêr' en 'kuns' moontlik. Dit bring ook 'n radikale bevraagtekening mee van die konstrukte ras, identiteit, klas en geslag, wat voorheen as vaste indelings beskou is. Die verflouing van die dokumentêre imperatief om dinge op rekord te stel, maak dit moontlik om op 'n meer kreatiewe wyse as ooit tevore met die medium om te gaan. Kunstenaars kan nou met die tegniese sy van fotografie eksperimenteer: video, multimedia, digitale fotografie, historiese prosesse, kleur, saamgestelde werke en interaktiewe stukke. In hierdie tesis kyk ek op verkennende wyse na die veranderings waarna hierbo verwys word, en situeer ek my praktiese werk binne hierdie kontemporêre paradigma.