Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1984. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-49).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, 1980. / Typescript. Includes abstract. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, leaves 327-356).

Thesis (Ph. D)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-181).

The user perspective of image search remains poorly understood. the purpose of this study is to identify and investigate the key issues relevant to a user’s interaction with images and the user’s approach to image search. a deeper understanding of these issues will serve to inform the design of image retrieval systems and in turn better serve the user. Previous research explores areas of information seeking behavior, representation in information science, query formulation, and image retrieval. the theoretical framework for this study includes an articulation of image search scenarios as adapted from Yoon and O’Connor’s taxonomy of image query types, Copeland’s Engineering Design Approach for rigorous qualitative research, and Anderson’s Functional Ontology Construction Model for building robust models of human behavior. a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with expert-level image users. Interviewees discussed their motivations for image search, types of image searches they pursue, and varied approaches to image search, as well as how they decide that an information need has been met and which factors influence their experience of search. a content analysis revealed themes repeated across responses, including a collection of 23 emergent concepts and 6 emergent categories. a functional analysis revealed further insight into these themes. Results from both analyses may be used as a framework for future exploration of this topic. Implications are discussed and future research directions are indicated. Among possibilities for future research are investigations into collaborative search and ubiquitous image search.

No description available.

As members of extended families and genealogical lines we collect and view photographs to remember. By situating the present investigation within the context of archival family photographic collections, this research seeks to understand the assumptions surrounding the interplay between the practice of viewing photographs and notions of remembering. Historically, photography has been connected to concepts of stability and truth with photographic images acting as a metaphor for ‘real lived experiences’. When a photograph is viewed, whatever was present before the camera is verified. In his seminal text Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1980), French theorist Roland Barthes describes this as ‘a truth to presence’ (Barthes 1980: 84). Barthes links this position to Poststructuralist theory, by determining that photographic signifiers, denotative data, are stable where as the signified, the idea or meaning, is contingent on what a viewer brings to that particular ‘text’. Therefore the viewer relies on denotative data to process meaning. This research explores the ways photographers play with photographic processes to disrupt ideas of stability of meaning surrounding this medium. The visual component of this research explores the expectations that socio-cultural groups, specifically extended families, have when viewing photographs. The subsequent work will endeavour to lay bare the interplay between such expectations and the supposed reliability of the photograph in respect to both meaning and perception. Using an archive of my own extended family’s collection of photographs, this thesis seeks to disrupt the story-telling qualities of photographs. This interruption strategy points to poststructuralist discourses surrounding the stability of the photographic image and the context in which photography is grounded. The work will challenge viewers to re-assess what the photograph can or cannot do. The final work will be comprised of 80% practice and 20% exegesis.

The focus of this study is the controversy around the photographic representation of the RIV/AIDS pandemic in Zambia (1999) by the Dutch photojournalist Geert van Kesteren. The controversy evolved around the 13th International Aids Conference in Durban (9-13 July 2000) between the photojournalist and AIDS activists, who argued that the photographs depicted their subjects - all black Zambians - in a victimising, stereotypical and racist manner. An investigation of the controversy on the issues generated forms the premise from which this research is conducted. This is intended to illuminate the nature and context of the more general soci()-documentary encounter between the observing photographer (the Western 'Same') and his/her subject (the sub-Saharan African 'Other') in terms of the politics of representation and the power involved. The study is undertaken within a broad visual anthropological framework of representing the African 'Other' from a Western perspective. The theoretical focus is on differing debates on representational processes and possible claims involved, especially by highlighting and questioning discourses of 'Othering'. Face-to-face, unstructured interviews were conducted with the key actors in the controversy and used to examine how subjectivity and institutional positionality in terms of socio-historical background, class, gender and race influence both the construction and interpretation of representation. Further, the study. addresses some of the limits of the representation of power relations and illuminates that the regime of representation is a system of knowledge production, implying issues of power and inequality. It has to be understood as a discursive site of power relationships, an arena for oppositional political discourses, of which adversary parties consider themselves responsible. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

As members of extended families and genealogical lines we collect and view photographs to remember. By situating the present investigation within the context of archival family photographic collections, this research seeks to understand the assumptions surrounding the interplay between the practice of viewing photographs and notions of remembering. Historically, photography has been connected to concepts of stability and truth with photographic images acting as a metaphor for ‘real lived experiences’. When a photograph is viewed, whatever was present before the camera is verified. In his seminal text Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1980), French theorist Roland Barthes describes this as ‘a truth to presence’ (Barthes 1980: 84). Barthes links this position to Poststructuralist theory, by determining that photographic signifiers, denotative data, are stable where as the signified, the idea or meaning, is contingent on what a viewer brings to that particular ‘text’. Therefore the viewer relies on denotative data to process meaning. This research explores the ways photographers play with photographic processes to disrupt ideas of stability of meaning surrounding this medium. The visual component of this research explores the expectations that socio-cultural groups, specifically extended families, have when viewing photographs. The subsequent work will endeavour to lay bare the interplay between such expectations and the supposed reliability of the photograph in respect to both meaning and perception. Using an archive of my own extended family’s collection of photographs, this thesis seeks to disrupt the story-telling qualities of photographs. This interruption strategy points to poststructuralist discourses surrounding the stability of the photographic image and the context in which photography is grounded. The work will challenge viewers to re-assess what the photograph can or cannot do. The final work will be comprised of 80% practice and 20% exegesis.

Caption "Acacia caffra leafless in winter. June 1961. Below Laing Dam.”

Caption "Enormous thorns on type of A. Karoo found in Fish River Bush near Grahamstown. 1958.”