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.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide in-depth knowledge by exploring how image cataloguing provides a context for expressions related to sex, gender, and queerness through metadata and textual descriptions within library databases. This thesis examines how normative conceptions related to sex, gender, and queerness affect the praxis of image cataloguing and how the material’s retrievability is influenced by these aspects. To examine how biases and preconceptions about sex, gender, and queerness are expressed through metadata and descriptive cataloguing the study focuses on catalogued portrait photographs, especially images portraying unknown individuals. The conclusions of this study are that descriptions of images portraying unknown individuals are heavily characterised by a binary view of sex and gender. Unknown individuals are categorised as women or men based on outer appearances, and not in a sex/gender neutral way. Since interpretations are based on clothing, hairstyles, accessories et cetera and not the naked body it may be argued that gender is being categorised, and not necessarily sex. If gender is to be understood as a social construction not attached to any specific physicality it may be expressed in any way by anyone. The assumption of being able to place people in sexed categories based merely on their appearances may therefore be questioned. A further conclusion is that queerness isn’t included when images are being catalogued. The study however shows that heteronormative assumptions may be traced in the way images are described. It may also be concluded that describing portrait photographs mainly through aspects related to sex/gender ignores other informative aspects of them as images, making them less retrievable for users. This is a two years master's thesis in library and information science.

Denna uppsats behandlade material i form av fotografier och fotoalbum från tidsperioden 1850 – tidig 1900-talet. Tre fotoalbum valdes ut och jämförelsestudier utfördes på handplockade fotografier.Frågeställningar som utöver skulle besvaras var följande: • Hur har fotografen vald att avbilda personer och kan man utgöra mönster eller skillnader i avbildningen mellan kvinnor/män? • Ger fotografierna några konkreta ledtrådar för att kunna tidsbestämma dessa?• Kan man se en tydlig hierarki i hur fotografierna är placerade i fotoalbum tre? I undersökningen kom fram att fotografen hade flera olika rekvisita till hjälp, för det mesta stolar, böcker och olika bakgrunder när personer fotograferades. Undersökningen gav dock inget svar på om kunderna kunde välja mellan olika rekvisita eller om fotografen valde ut dessa. Vidare hände det väldigt sällan att fotografen dirigerade kundens blick direkt in i kameran, i de flesta fotografier syns kundens blick vara riktad mot vänster om kamerans lens, även överkroppen är bortvänd från kameran. I vissa fotografier syntes männen fortfarande iklädda sina ytterkläder medan kvinnorna avbildades utan ytterkläder på. Ett förförande som var traditionellt förankrad i visitkortsfotografier under denna period.Tidsbestämningen av fotografierna gjordes dels med hjälp av fotografregistret där fotografernas verksamhetstid är nedskriven och med hjälp av en manual från Skelleftebygden. Ett släktträd upprättades som hjälpmedel till frågeställningen om möjliga hierarkier fanns i fotoalbum nummer 3.Uppsatsens diskussionsdel belyste också hur fotoalbum 3 som hade mest metadata knuten till sig troligen användes av ägaren. Det visade sig att det fanns ett slags hierarki i placeringen av fotografierna i albumet som undersöktes med hänsyn till en engelsk publikation av James Granger och iakttagelser av den svenska forskaren Anna Dahlgren. En tydlig ordning där första bilden är av ägarens föräldrar följd av fotografier föreställande ägarens farmor och mormor. Efter detta presenterades först faderns sida och sedan moderns sida. Albumet avslutades med en serie av fotografier av ett så kallad ”gubbkräk” som fick trots sin höga ställning inom militären placeringen längs bak i albumet där i annan forskning brottslingar eller personer med missväxt placerades. Utöver detta verkade fotoalbum nummer 3 ha används i sammanhang med privata sammankomster såsom släktmiddagar. Förhoppningen med upptäckten att det kan finnas en hierarki i dessa fotoalbum är att flera arkivinstitutioner ändrar sitt arbetssätt i hur man tar emot och förvarar fotoalbum i framtiden.

This thesis studies the style of Native American portrait photographs of William S. Soule (1836-1908), John K. Hillers (1834-1925), and William E. Irwin (1871-1935), who worked in Oklahoma from 1869 to 1904. The examination of the three men's work revealed that each artist had different motivations for creating Native American portrait photographs, and a result, used a distinct style. However, despite the individual artistic styles, each artist conformed to Native American stereotypes common during the nineteenth-century. The thesis includes a discussion of the history of the area, photographer biographies, a stylistic analysis of the photographs, and how the images fit into American Indian stereotypes.

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.

Apparu vers le milieu du XIXe siècle comme jargon dans les cercles artistiques munichois désignant une image de piètre qualité, bon marché, le mot kitsch s’utilise aujourd’hui non seulement dans le monde de l’art mais aussi dans la vie quotidienne toujours avec un sens fortement péjoratif. Considéré en général comme « mauvais goût », « art sans valeur », « camelote artistique », ou « art vulgaire », le kitsch n’est pourtant pas un concept qui demeure seulement dans une dimension esthétique ou artistique. Les divers phénomènes historiques du kitsch, émergés dans le contexte de la modernité, comme « la bib[e]lotomanie », « le roman-feuilleton », « l’art pompier » en France au XIXe siècle, ou encore « la peinture de salon de coiffure » en Corée au XXe siècle, trahissent tous que le kitsch est en effet une attitude que l’homme adopte vis-à-vis de son existence et du monde dans la réalité. L’essentiel de ce concept réside donc dans sa négation ou mieux dans sa fuite de la réalité. Voilà pourquoi la photographie se présente comme un médium qui mérite d’être étudié en rapport avec le kitsch. Médium qui a un lien spécifique par excellence avec le réel, elle ne cesse de faire ontologiquement le va-et-vient entre le présent et le passé, l’instantanéité et l’éternel, l’ici et l’ailleurs, le sujet et l’objet, la vie et la mort, etc. C’est en effet à cause de cette ontologie paradoxale que la photo peut devenir, selon « l’acte photographique », non seulement de l’art mais aussi du kitsch. Ainsi, l’attitude envers ce dernier que les artistes laissent apercevoir à travers leur œuvre photographique s’avère extrêmement variée, et ambiguë, voire même contradictoire tout comme chez Pierre et Gilles, Vik Muniz, Sebastião Salgado et Oliviero Toscani. / Appeared in the mid-nineteenth century as a jargon in the artistic circles of Munich designating a cheap image of poor quality, the term “kitsch” is used today not only in the art world, but also in everyday life, always with strongly pejorative sense. Generally considered as “bad taste”, “worthless art”, “artistic junk” or “vulgar art”, kitsch, however, is not a concept that remains only in aesthetic or artistic field ?. Various historical phenomena of kitsch which had been all emerged in the context of modernity, such as “bib[e]lotomanie”, “serialized novel”, “academic art” in France in the nineteenth century, or “barbershop’s painting” in Korea in the twentieth century, show that kitsch is indeed an attitude of human being toward his own existence and the world. The essence of this concept lies therefore in his negation of reality, or better in his escape from reality. That’s why photography deserves to be studied in relation with the kitsch. Having a specific link with the reality, the medium oscillate ontologically between the present and the past, the instant and the eternity, the here and the elsewhere, the subject and the object, the life and the death, etc. It is indeed because of this paradoxical ontology that the photography can become, according to the “acte photographique” not just art but also kitsch. Thus, the attitude to the latter the artists let reveal through their photographic work turn out extremely varied and ambiguous, even contradictory such as it does in the work of Pierre et Gilles, Vik Muniz, Sebastião Salgado and Oliviero Toscani.

This thesis is about the geopolitics of feminist knowledge and the role of the visual arts in conceiving and reconfiguring postsocialist feminist imaginaries. Its central concern is to contest the fantasy, prevalent within Western feminist theorizing, of a “lag” between Western and former Eastern Europe. The thesis explores these imaginaries on a micro scale, zooming in on the deeply personal and political artwork of a contemporary feminist and lesbian-identified Estonian artist, Anna-Stina Treumund. This partial and limited focus on Treumund’s photographic self-portraiture enables us to look into the intensities and specificities of individual experience in postsocialist space. Throughout, the thesis evokes a whirling subject as a feminist figuration. This is simultaneously a reference to the embodied and the relational structure of knowledge-systems and world-making. Drawing on postsocialist, postcolonial, queer and feminist visual culture studies, the author argues that Treumund’s art is always already embedded in the local context, as it builds on and problematizes the existing discussions of feminist generations, theorizing, activism and art practices. Combining close readings of Treumund’s artworks with contemporary theoretical debates in feminist studies, encounters with the artist and autobiographical narratives, this thesis asserts: there is no “lag”. More importantly, it is of utmost ethical and political importance to pay closer attention to geopolitical locatedness as an axis of difference that matters in contemporary feminist theorizing. / Den här doktorsavhandlingen handlar om geopolitik i feministisk kunskap och bildkonstens roll i förståelse och omskapande av postsocialistiska feministiska föreställningar. Dess huvudsakliga fokus handlar om att bestrida den i västerländsk feministisk teori ofta förekommande fantasin om att före detta Östeuropa på olika sätt ”släpar efter” i relation till väst. Doktorsavhandlingen utforskar dessa föreställningar på mikronivå då den zoomar in på det djupt personliga och politiska bildkonstarbete utfört av den samtida feministiska och självidentifierat lesbiska estniska konstnärinnan Anna-Stina Treumund. Avhandlingens partiella fokus på Treumunds fotografier i form av självporträtt möjliggör för oss att få inblick i de intensiteter och specifika förhållanden som utgör en individuell erfarenhet av att befinna sig i det postsocialistiska rummet. Genomgående i doktorsavhandlingen används det virvlande subjektet som feministisk figuration. Figurationen innebär simultant en referens till den förkroppsligade och den relationella aspekten av kunskapssystem och skapande av världen. Med utgångspunkt i postsocialistiska, postkoloniala, queera och feministiska studier av visuell kultur argumenterar författaren att Treumunds bildkonst alltid redan är inbäddad i en lokal kontext, detta sedan den växer fram ur och problematiserar de diskussioner som pågår mellan feministiska generationer, i teori, aktivism och bland konstutövare. Genom att kombinera närläsning av Treumunds konstnärliga arbete med samtida teoretisk debatt inom feministiska studier, med möten med konstnärinnan, och med självbiografiska berättelser, försäkrar denna avhandling: det finns ingen “eftersläpning”. Än mer väsentligt är att betona att det är av yttersta etisk och politisk vikt att ägna mer uppmärksamhet åt geopolitiska lokaliseringar som skillnadsskapande faktor i samtida feministisk teoribildning.