We have become increasingly dependent on our smartphones and use them for entertainment, navigation, to shop, and to connect among other tasks. For many, the camera on the smartphone has replaced a dedicated digital camera, especially for the adolescent. With advances in smartphone technology, it is has become increasingly difficult to determine differences between smartphone camera and digital camera photographs. To date there is little research on the differences between photographs taken by smartphone and digital cameras, particularly among adolescents, who are avid photographers.This study used a qualitative task-based research method to investigate differences in photographs taken by adolescents using both types of cameras. Twenty-three adolescents ages 15 to 17 attending a regularly scheduled high school photography class participated in the study. The students were invited to capture a typical day in their life, first using their digital camera or smartphone camera and then switching to the other type of camera. Data were collected by way of written reflections, student interviews, and the participants’ photographs. The three data sources were coded, analyzed, and triangulated to provide results for this study. Results suggest that, for these particular participants, marginal differences exist between the photographs taken with a smartphone camera and a digital camera. Analysis also suggests there were minimal differences across specific categories of focus, color balance, and thoughtfully captured images between the smartphone and the digital camera photographs for this population of students. The study concludes that teenagers ultimately use whatever capturing device is available to them, suggesting that it is the photographer who controls the quality of a photograph—not the capturing device. Educational implications of the study focus on the use of technology in the art classroom, and suggestions are offered for photographic curricula based on the results of this study. In addition, an examination of different pedagogical styles, such as reciprocal and remote teaching and learning models, finds them particularly appropriate in supporting photography education for adolescents.

The prevalence of images of the fragmented bodies of nonhuman animals is largely unaccounted for in the history of interwar European art, photography, and cinema, a result of the historical marginalization of the slaughterhouse to the edges of Western culture. But despite, and sometimes because of, the suppression of the visibility of the abattoir, visions of the grisly world of modern animal production form a sizeable and important subset of avant-garde art, photography, film, and literature beginning in the 1920s. No significant studies have placed images of real, disassembled animals into a broader account of avant-garde photography, nor have they made the connection between the great increase in photographic and filmic art and media in the period and the simultaneously rapid growth of animal production leading up to and during it. I argue that the interwar period witnessed a profound interplay between the industrial slaughterhouse, visual culture, and avant-garde art, marked by the dual meaning of Nicole Shukin’s conceptualization of rendering as both the creating of images of and the material processing of nonhuman animal bodies. I assert that through the use of animal-derived gelatin, the industrial processing of animals helped to fuel the explosive growth of photography, cinema, and thus visual culture in the period. I examine a number of examples of artistic and photographic works that picture slaughter animals, ironically through a medium (photography) that is materially tied to the history and conditions of the abattoir, revealing a poignant connection between the content of the images seen and the form of their material substrate. I further read the photographic projects under study in this dissertation as each in their own way turning our attention to the material precarity of the animal body, both human and nonhuman, and a questioning of the human/animal divide that had been accelerating since the nineteenth century.

This dissertation studies a quiet but enormous cultural phenomenon that arose in the Soviet Union during the difficult years following World War II: amateur family photography. In the wake of enormous trauma and deprivation, millions of Soviet citizens picked up cameras and began to create images of their lives and environments. In doing so, I argue, they participated in a global trend in a specifically Soviet way. This project begins by establishing the rise of a domestic camera industry, which was the production base that allowed for the massive growth of Soviet amateur photography. Next, I examine how official cultural and economic institutions encouraged, discouraged, and reacted to the rising population of photographers. I then pivot to the work of amateur photographers themselves, exploring their self-representation through three vantage points. First, I trace some of the first mass Soviet amateur photographers: Red Army soldiers. Next, I examine family snapshot photography in Soviet Russia from 1945 to 1956. Finally, I focus on the personal photography of Russian and ex-Soviet displaced persons camps in Germany following the war. Through these three perspectives, I argue that Soviet and ex-Soviet amateur photographers created a new, unique visual language, interpreting their lives through their cameras. This dissertation seeks to answer two main questions. First, why did the Soviet state, in the wake of World War II and amid widespread shortage and famine, consistently expand camera supply and fuel a boom in amateur photography? Second, what sorts of photos did Soviet amateur photographers take, and how can they deepen our understanding of post-war Soviet culture? I argue that the Soviet state invested in cameras initially as a military technology, with the camera evolving into a consumer good over the course of the war and its aftermath. With their new cameras in hand, amateur photographers took photographs much like their international counterparts, highlighting their private lives and using common visual cliches to stage and set individuals as the focus of their images.

This project explores the technological hybridity of early color formats against medium-specific definitions of photography and cinema. It argues for the centrality of female photographers as early practitioners and innovators of color photography in the United States and England. It claims that color featured prominently in the late Victorian and Edwardian imperial imaginary to construct orientalizing views of colonial subjects. Early color photographic technologies (1890-1920) are situated within contemporaneous scientific and social debates around color. These debates evince a crucial epistemological shift in the conceptualization of color: from a relational phenomenon of the human senses and world to an empirical and physical one affixed to objects. The first chapter advances the color image as an event: a co-production of the human sensorium and machine technologies, rendered in time and space. The second chapter charts the intersections of photography, color, and gender discourses, with an emphasis on three female photographers who successfully marshalled the gendered biases of color in order to establish expressive modes and photographic careers in the new color medium. The gendering of color also helped to define orientalist photography and film of the British colonial era, particularly that of India, the subject of the third chapter. Comparing color in orientalist depictions of India and the use of color in Indian photographic portraits compels us to reconsider the links between technology and subjectivity as well as modernity and colonialism. This dissertation seeks not only to rewrite the history of early color photography but also to reconfigure understandings of aesthetic modernity as a complex imbrication of art, technology, gender, and imperialism.

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.

Belongings hybridizes photography, sculpture, and printmaking through new laser technology. The exhibited work communicates a lingering sense of homesickness and maps a path through the objects discovered in my father’s wallet shortly after his passing. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This dissertation considers whether photography as a language translates a transient moment into an embodied image. This is considered to be a mimesis of the moment as an aid for memory. By following a dialectic approach I posit a thesis based on the common sense perception of photography which states that photography is an artefactual mimesis aiding memory. After reflecting on Plato’s concept of writing as a pharmakon and Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction theory I establish an antithesis which proclaims that a photograph aids memory but also leads to the illusion of remembering past experiences. The synthesis is then presented which resolves the opposing ideas. This component argues that a photograph is a mimetic device that aids memory by presenting embodied fragmented reflections of time which can be used to create new meanings and memories. The dissertation concludes with a discussion that supports and integrates this argument with visual research. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

The Enigma of Appearances is an examination into the medium of three-dimensional photography, with particular focus on the technique of stereoscopy. Invented in the mid-Victorian era, stereoscopy was an attempt to simulate natural three-dimensional perception via a combination of optics, neurology, and a pair of dissimilar images. Whilst successful in producing a powerful illusion of spatial depth and tangibility, the illusion produced by stereoscopy is anything but ??natural??, when compared to three-dimensional perception observed with the naked eye. Rather, stereoscopic photography creates a strange and unnatural interpretation of three-dimensional reality, devoid of atmosphere, movement and sound, where figures appear frozen in mid-motion, like waxwork models, or embalmed creatures in a museum. However, it is precisely stereoscopic photography??s unique and enigmatic interpretation of three-dimensional reality, which gives it its strength, separating it from being a mere ??realistic?? recording of the natural world. This thesis examines the unique cultural position that stereoscopy has occupied since its invention in 1838, from its early role as a tool for the study of binocular vision, to its phenomenal popularity as a form of mass entertainment in the second half of the 19th century, to its emergence in contemporary fine art practice in the late 20th and 21stt centuries. Additionally, The Enigma of Appearances gives a detailed analysis of the theory of spatial depth perception; it discusses the dichotomy between naturalia versus artificialia in relation to stereoscopic vision; and finally, traces the development of experimental studio practice and research into stereoscopic photography, undertaken for this MFA between 2005 and 2007. The resulting work, Camera Mortuaria (Italian for ??Mortuary Room??), is a powerful and innovative series of anaglyptic portraits, based upon an experimental stereoscopic technique that enables the production of extreme close-up three-dimensional photography. Applying this technique to the reproduction of the human face in three-dimensional form, Camera Mortuaria presents a series of ??photo sculptures??, which hover between reality and illusion, pushing the boundaries of stills photography to the limit, and beyond.

The Enigma of Appearances is an examination into the medium of three-dimensional photography, with particular focus on the technique of stereoscopy. Invented in the mid-Victorian era, stereoscopy was an attempt to simulate natural three-dimensional perception via a combination of optics, neurology, and a pair of dissimilar images. Whilst successful in producing a powerful illusion of spatial depth and tangibility, the illusion produced by stereoscopy is anything but ??natural??, when compared to three-dimensional perception observed with the naked eye. Rather, stereoscopic photography creates a strange and unnatural interpretation of three-dimensional reality, devoid of atmosphere, movement and sound, where figures appear frozen in mid-motion, like waxwork models, or embalmed creatures in a museum. However, it is precisely stereoscopic photography??s unique and enigmatic interpretation of three-dimensional reality, which gives it its strength, separating it from being a mere ??realistic?? recording of the natural world. This thesis examines the unique cultural position that stereoscopy has occupied since its invention in 1838, from its early role as a tool for the study of binocular vision, to its phenomenal popularity as a form of mass entertainment in the second half of the 19th century, to its emergence in contemporary fine art practice in the late 20th and 21stt centuries. Additionally, The Enigma of Appearances gives a detailed analysis of the theory of spatial depth perception; it discusses the dichotomy between naturalia versus artificialia in relation to stereoscopic vision; and finally, traces the development of experimental studio practice and research into stereoscopic photography, undertaken for this MFA between 2005 and 2007. The resulting work, Camera Mortuaria (Italian for ??Mortuary Room??), is a powerful and innovative series of anaglyptic portraits, based upon an experimental stereoscopic technique that enables the production of extreme close-up three-dimensional photography. Applying this technique to the reproduction of the human face in three-dimensional form, Camera Mortuaria presents a series of ??photo sculptures??, which hover between reality and illusion, pushing the boundaries of stills photography to the limit, and beyond.

This dissertation considers whether photography as a language translates a transient moment into an embodied image. This is considered to be a mimesis of the moment as an aid for memory. By following a dialectic approach I posit a thesis based on the common sense perception of photography which states that photography is an artefactual mimesis aiding memory. After reflecting on Plato’s concept of writing as a pharmakon and Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction theory I establish an antithesis which proclaims that a photograph aids memory but also leads to the illusion of remembering past experiences. The synthesis is then presented which resolves the opposing ideas. This component argues that a photograph is a mimetic device that aids memory by presenting embodied fragmented reflections of time which can be used to create new meanings and memories. The dissertation concludes with a discussion that supports and integrates this argument with visual research. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)