Photographic Practice Research Articles

Michaël Ferrier Inter-Media: Writing the World Between Image, Music and Text

Informed by his practice of music, drawing, photography and calligraphy, and depicting various experiences of border crossing between cultures, languages and media, Michaël Ferrier’s eclectic writings are characterised by an aesthetic hybridity that defies generic classifications. In line with his critique of the primacy of the visual in contemporary societies, his versatile prose frequently uses synaesthesia and refers to numerous art forms such as jazz, painting or cinema, thereby appealing to the reader’s five senses. Ceaselessly experimenting in his literary work with the flexible form of the novel, between fact and fiction, Ferrier published in 2019 his first photo-text, Scrabble, which is analysed in depth in the second part of this article. In this autobiographical narrative focusing on his childhood in Chad in the 1970s, the numerous black and white illustrations introduce a complex game of presence and absence that mirrors the way memory functions. Haunted by the traumatic advent of civil war that brutally halted Ferrier’s stay in Africa, this multi-media work circles around an ominous image of the author playing Scrabble with his brother as the conflict is about to break out; evoked at the beginning and the end of the text, this decisive image however remains elusive—a “ghost image.”

Photography and electroplate in 1840s Birmingham

Industrial improvements to silver plating through the work of electroplating firms such as Elkington, Mason and Co are an important part of our industrial heritage, bridging art, science and industry to form a significant portion of museum collections. However, the impact of this development of silverplating technology upon photography has not previously been explored. This article details the improvements that electroplated silver brought to the daguerreotype photographic process and to the manufacture of daguerreotype plates in Birmingham, offering a material reappraisal of the inventive qualities of the daguerreotype within a wider narrative of industrial manufacture. Chemists in 1840s Birmingham were developing photographic techniques and silverplating processes at the Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, later Queens College on Paradise Street. These scientists – George Shaw (1818–1904) and John Percy (1817–1889) – had detailed, tactile knowledge of the convergent chemistry and processes in both arenas. Developments in the industrial manufacture of silverplate in 1840s Birmingham created significant improvements to the materials used in the daguerreotype photographic process, making photography more viable as a commercial venture. Shaw planned an early portrait studio and worked with early innovators in electroplating techniques the Marrian brothers (Francis (1802–1893) and Benjamin James Pratt Marrian (1811–1891)) using magneto-plate technology developed by another Birmingham industrial entrepreneur John Woolrich (c. 1791–1843). This potential studio did not emerge due to restrictive patenting and licensing restrictions around the practice of daguerreotype photography, yet extant daguerreotypes tell a story of improvements stemming from technical innovation. These daguerreotypes situate industrial Birmingham as a place of innovation and invention and place the daguerreotype photographic process within narratives of industrial improvements and radically inventive manufacturing practices. Key to the analysis presented here is the role of the recreation of historic techniques in historical research and the value of acquiring tactile knowledge of the behaviour of materials during the processes explored. Here practical experiments allowed the author to look beyond the surviving daguerreotypes via material knowledge to the circumstances and social environment of production. This approach revealed new knowledge which offers an alternative reading of the history of objects through their materials.

A meeting with gardenia: an ethnographic exploration of multispecies relationships and space construction in Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

In an age of climate and ecological breakdown, questions of how we relate to the natural world and the more-than-human beings around us are more important than ever. This ethnography seeks to bring these questions to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town, South Africa, a place known for its conservation and tourism value, by taking an experimental multispecies approach. Multispecies ethnography is particularly useful for these types of explorations as it allows the stories of the more-than-human to emerge from the periphery and be put in conversation with the human. This ethnography found that despite Kirstenbosch’s socioecological benefits, the intimacy fostered between humans and more-than-humans in the gardens is distinctly human-centric and centres on a colonial construction of nature and natural beauty. Practices of photography and viewing and the commercialisation of the gardens reinforce such a relationship, producing a space where human needs and desires are prioritised and the boundary between humans and more-than-humans reified. This multispecies approach to human–environment interactions highlights the potential failures of western conservation practices and contributes to the growing exploration of complex human–nature relationships in ways that are deeper and kinder and that recognise nature’s agency and animacy in the Anthropocene.

Photographing the game glitch: Between ghost photography and immaterial labour

This article explores the properties of glitch within practices of in-game photography. It argues that capturing the breaking of game textures and graphics reveals the process of creation of photorealism and the remediation of traditional photography within digital and playable spaces. On the other hand, it proposes that screenshotting game glitches acts as an involuntary bug report and part of an economy of ever-optimizing networked images.

PHOTOGRAPHY FESTIVALS AND FAIRS: SHOWCASING NEW IDEAS IN PHOTOGRAPHY

This article assumes that photographic festivals and fairs can play a role in articulating and promoting new ideas in photography. As exhibition spaces, these public events guide and showcase new trends, perspectives and practices in the art of photography. They not only permit exhibiting the variety of photographic art forms, innovative ideas and the most cutting-edge practices, but also serve as a catalyst that stimulates the ongoing evolution of photography in a socio-cultural setting. Firstly, using specific examples of photo festivals and photo fairs, the article examines how they can showcase and guide new ideas in photography. It further explores how they reflect and foster innovation in photographic artistic thought by demonstrating recent trends in photography, capturing new socio-cultural tendencies, and reinterpreting iconic works. Furthermore, the article investigates how these photography exhibition spaces enable communication and exchanges between artists, curators, and viewers. Festivals and fairs present both the author and the viewer with new ways of understanding the art of photography and offer them new experience. The role of the viewer changes from passive to active: now, by participating in the discussion of the artwork, reflecting on it, the viewer becomes a catalyst for innovation. Finally, photo festivals and fairs have led to a transformation in the ways of viewing and creating, and changed the roles of viewer, artist and curator. Through innovative ways of exhibiting, such as virtual reality or multimedia technologies, they have stimulated the development of ways of viewing and understanding photography artworks. Hence, in this article, we delve into photography festivals and fairs as a sort of window through which we can observe the emergence, evolution, and propagation of new concepts, artforms, and practices of photography. At the same time, they foster innovative ideas and play a key role in the development of means of visual artistic expression and photographic practice. The objective of this study is to provide scholars, practitioners, and photography enthusiasts with a deeper understanding of photographic festivals and fairs and to shed light on how this medium can be used to develop and innovate the art of photography. Hopefully, this article will provide a new perspective and understanding of photography research and practice and contribute to the further development of the art of photography in the 21st century.

Mozgó fényképek. The scandal and debate around moving images in early Hungarian cinema

ABSTRACT This paper traces the Budapest staging of a very popular German play in Europe and US at the end of the 19th century that can be regarded as one of the earliest narratives of the cinematic experience in Hungary. Originally published with the title Hans Huckebein in 1897 and written by Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg, the play remained outside the horizon of early cinema scholars, although it is a rich inventory of different modes of using and interpreting moving images. The Budapest performance of the play incorporates the screening of a cinema program, including a hitherto unknown (Lumière?) film commissioned by the theatre. The characters and the theatrical audience become film viewers, and this experience is extensively debated on stage. Instantaneous photography and moving image recording allowed for trespassing the boundary between private and public, since the model’s consent was not technically required for the recording process. The ‘scandal’ staged by the play is the presentation of a (moving) image ‒ considered personal and private ‒ in the public space of the cinema. The debate around this scandal contributes to the redefinition of both personal identity, construed increasingly as an image, and the public sphere as a realm of censored images. The article sets out to map the variability of practices and cultural codes ‒ such as theatrical plots, practices of instant and studio photography, personal image protection, copyright ‒ that affected the interpretation and uses of moving images.

FRAMING “THE PHOTOGRAPHIC SELF” IN EDUCATION PROGRAMS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS IN RUSSIA AND SWEDEN

The aim of this study is to understand the ‘photographic selves’ – the collective competences and skills required for making, interpreting, and communicating through photographs — that are articulated in the educational framework for future photographers in Russia and Sweden. These are two countries with very different histories in relation to photographic practices. Theories on photography from recent decades have emphasized that digital photography is a different medium from analogue photography. This study seeks to understand whether and how this is addressed in two different cultural contexts, based on interviews with teachers and department heads, combined with written descriptions of courses and educational programs. The material makes visible different ideal photographic practices. One, the most common in both countries, is firmly embedded in the international documentary tradition. Other ways, represented by teachers at a Russian art school for photography, stress a more critical perspective toward established conventions. However, absent at the studied schools are more freer understandings of photography in the wake of digitization. Photography is still framed by the historically anchored indexical relation to the surrounding world and as a fixed object.

Photography in dermatology - a scoping review: Practices, skin of color, patient preferences, and medical-legal considerations.

Clinical photography is essential in dermatology. However, a comprehensive literature review of photography in dermatology is lacking. This scoping review aims to summarize the literature regarding photography practices in dermatology, photography of skin of color, patient preferences, and medical-legal considerations. A search was conducted utilizing Embase, MEDLINE, PubMed, and Evidence Based Medicine databases in accordance with the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews. In total, 33studies were summarized. Clinical photography is commonly used in biopsy site marking, assessment, diagnosis, disease monitoring, evaluation of treatment response, medical education, research, seeking advice from colleagues, and teledermatology. Although dermatologic photography remains devoid of skin of color representation, photographic considerations for darker skin are available. Most patients support medical photography, with a preference for clinical photographs to be taken by their own physicians, and for use of clinic/hospital-owned cameras over personal devices. Pertinent medical-legal issues include concerns around privacy, personal device use, and documentation of consent. Photography in dermatology is continuously evolving with broader applications. Improved practices and innovations will benefit individuals of various skin tones. Management of consent and privacy must be upheld to sustain the increasing ease of image capture and sharing.

Architectura Transtopica: Totems of a Journeyman

The project Architectura Transtopica: Totems of a Journeyman argues in favour of using and interpreting fixed architectural structures as metaphors and symbols of expatriation. The primary inquiry of this paper is to consider how autobiographic re-enactments of lived experiences with architecture, triggered by non-country specific places, illustrate one’s life journey. Building on studies that are at the intersection of social and cultural studies, humanistic geography, evolutionary ecology, anthropology, art and architecture (Alahdadi, 2018; Avci et al., 2017; Kunz, 2016; Martin et al., 2015; Cotton, 2015; Mathur, 2011; Cresswell, 2006; Relph, 1977), I argue here that producing creative parallels of expatriation and the self in transience through fixed structures involves a concrete representational framework. In what follows, I offer insights on the conceptual fabrication, representational framework, and expanded photographic practices I followed for the completion of Architectura Transtopica. Drawing from practice and theory concepts synthetically, I present visual examples, complimented with an analysis on how fixed architectural structures can become emblematic in order to communicate the intricacies of expatriation and selfhood facing the self in transience.

Our Photographs, Old and New

Private and family photographs are our most personal images taken at significant events of our lives. We used to put these photos into albums or just kept them in boxes without specific orders, and we only opened up these personal archives when we wanted to share our memories and stories with family members or close friends. These common habits regarding how we take and share private photos have changed a lot due to the digital turn, the increasing number of digital cameras, and the broadening usage of the Internet and social media platforms. Archives are often places of safeguarding memories, places that make us remember and places of preservation. However, in recent years, the questions related to them and the archiving methods are mostly focused on how digitization has transformed them. The varying ways and effects of technical image usage caused by the technological boom are some of the most characteristic and defining elements of our times. In my paper titled Our Photographs, Old and New, I examine — through a contemporary artwork by Gergely Barcza — how private photography practices and private photo archives have changed in the last decades.

La fotografía de difuntos del siglo XIX como reflejo psicosocial e intelectual de una época

The photography of the deceased, especially those taken during their years of public splendor, became a highly demanded product, not only for its emotional value as a reminder of the deceased, or as an aid to the psychological transition of mourning for close relatives, but also for its value as a sociocultural artifice. The post-mortem photography has been subject of profuse sociological, anthropological, artistic and even semiological studies, as a symbolic manifestation, but neither its value nor its meaning end there. Neither, by the way, were the familiar dead the only ones to be immortalized photographically, although they are the ones that have aroused the most interest and imagination in the present. After the nineteenth-century images of corpses, although their heyday continued until the 1920s, the long and controversial relationship that human beings have traditionally maintained with death and the "afterlife" survives. It is not surprising, in this sense, that the stellar moment of this photographic practice coincided temporarily with the birth of spiritualism. Nor that it crossed in time with the mentality and aesthetics of Romanticism, a cultural moment that maintained a peculiar connection to all intents and purposes with death, the dead, the new sociopolitical concepts when managing funeral practices, or the birth of the contemporary Thanatology. The 19th century, especially its second half, was an intellectual and cultural crossroads in which many ideas and approaches to death coming from the past had to merge with the rise of scientific positivism and an entirely new conception of human nature. This work tries to explore, through the photography of the deceased, this historical changes.

Visual Media, Macro Photography, and Exponential Imagination: Scalar Views in Ecohumanism

This brief essay engages with environmental stewardship and scale in the Anthropocene. Taking inspiration from Kees Boeke’s illustrated children’s book Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps and Charles and Ray Eames’s Powers of Ten—a short film based on Boeke’s book—this photo essay illustrates how, through the production of eco-art, the practice of macro photography can suggest the presence of worlds within one’s world. Creative engagements are offered so that children and adults, who must all live through and contend with the Anthropocene, might appreciate notions of environmental scale, particularly in relation to our ecological footprints over time. In so doing, visual media such as illustrated books, films, and macro photography encourage sustainability on a larger scale than humanity has yet to imagine.

Из фондов Музея антропологии МГУ. Фотографии народов Северного Кавказа в экспозиции Антропологической выставки 1879 года: кабардинцы и шапсуги

Introduction. Since the early 1860s photographic practice has become an integral part of the scien-tific process and one of the main methods of ethnographic and anthropological research in Russia. In the course of preparations for the first Ethnographic Exhibition in Russia (1867), organized by the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography (OLEAE), the Photographic Commission established by the Exhibition Committee (1866) developed a regulation on the execution of photographic portraits of the local population. In 1872 the first “instructions” in Russia for ethnographic and anthropological photography were published. Materials and methods. The source for the preparation of the article was a collection of photographs collected by E.D. Felitsyn (1848-1903) and presented at the Anthropological Exhibition of 1879 in Moscow. Currently, it is stored in the funds of the D.N. Anuchin Research Institute and the Museum of Anthropology, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. Results and discussion. Photographs of representatives of two nationalities - Kabardians and Shapsugs, who lived in the Kuban region, are described and analyzed: the villages of Blechepsinsky and Khodzsky (currently the village of Blechepsin and the village of Khodz of the Koshekhablsky district of the Republic of Adygea), Khokhondukovsky and Kasaevsky (currently the village of Ali-Berdukovsky and the village of Khabez in the Khabezsky district of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic) and the village of Kudzhirsky in the Maikop district, that was located on the left bank of the river Farce and abolished in 1885. These are: 3 photographs of children (6 and 8 years old), 7 photographs of men (18-58 years old) and 5 photographs of women (18-60 years old). A description of the depicted national clothes is given, as well as a summary of literary anthropological information about the Kabardians and Shapsugs of this period. Conclusion. The first published photographs of representatives of the two peoples of the North Caucasus living in the Kuban region in the second half of the 19th century make it possible to visualize some aspects of the historical information that scientists have at their disposal, to clarify the available anthropolog-ical, historical and cultural data on the Kabardians and Shapsugs, and also are an addition to the historical, archaeological, anthropological, genetic and ethnographic studies of the peoples of the North Caucasus @ 2023. This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.

PRACTICES OF BENCHMARKING, VULNERABILITY IN THE COMPUTER VISION PIPELINE

Computer vision datasets have proved to be key instruments to interpret visual data. This article concentrates on benchmark datasets which are used to define a technical problem and provide with a common referent against which different solutions can be compared. Through three case studies, ImageNet, the Pilot Parliaments Benchmark dataset and VizWiz, the article analyzes how photography is mobilised to conceive interventions in computer vision. The benchmark is a privileged site where photographic curation is tactically performed to change the scale of visual perception, oppose racial and gendered discrimination or rethink image interpretation for visually impaired users. Through the elaboration of benchmarks, engineers create curatorial pipelines involving large chains of heterogeneous actors exploiting various photographic practices from amateur snapshot to political portraiture or photography made by blind users. The article contends that the mobilisation of photography in the benchmark goes together with a multifaceted notion of vulnerability. It analyzes how various forms of vulnerabilities and insecurities pertaining to users, software companies, or vision systems are framed and how benchmarks are conceived in response to them. Following the alliances that form around vulnerabilities, the text explores the potential and limits of the practices of benchmarking in computer vision.

The Photographer’s Visual Grammar: Visual Rightness and Aesthetics of Artistic Photographs

Abstract We are living in a world where photography is everywhere, and almost everyone is a photographer (in the sense of producing photographs with some aesthetic aspiration). Yet, despite the democratic nature of the medium, which suggests that anyone can make great photographs, there are large differences in the aesthetic quality of photographs. Scientifically, we do not yet grasp very well what differentiates aesthetic from non-aesthetic photographs, and how this results in a different viewer experience. In this study, we explored the visual rightness of 21 high-quality artistic photographs, compared with their ecologically valid less-than-optimal variants (one to four alternatives). The high-quality photographs were selected from an online contemporary photography competition which is judged by experts (http://www.life-framer.com). The alternatives were variants provided by the photographers themselves. Participants () preferred the original photograph significantly more than chance level for the majority of the sets (13 out of 21), and significantly less than chance level for a minority of sets (three out of 21). This is in line with the visual rightness theory of picture perception, maintaining that artists are experts in creating visually right images, and that this is salient to nonexpert viewers. Yet, the preference for the original differed greatly between sets (range: 9.63–79.68%) and the original photograph was also the most preferred one in ‘only’ 12 out of 21 sets. Qualitative content analysis showed that preferences were influenced by many levels of photographic information (color, contrast, sharpness, composition, emotional expression, etc.), which were often working together. The most aesthetically powerful photographs reveal a skillful combination of medium, form, and subject matter levels, to produce an optimal visual message. Results have implications for empirical aesthetics, the photography practice, and for our understanding of photography literacy, a key topic in a world where there are many more photographs than humans that can appreciate them.

Missing the Present: Nostalgia and the Archival Impulse in Gentrification Photography

If gentrification is a violent form of “un-homing” (Elliot-Cooper et al., p. 494), then it is no surprise to witness an intensification of photographic practice in gentrifying areas; photography is, after all, fundamentally a place-making practice. Taking “home” to include the wider neighborhood and urban environment (Blunt and Sheringham 2019), this paper argues that the concept of anticipatory nostalgia is a useful way of understanding the recent wave of black and white photography in gentrifying areas. As well as signifying a sense of loss, anticipatory nostalgia, defined as missing the present before it has gone (Batcho and Shikh 2016), can also be seen as an aesthetic strategy of documenting places before they are lost to gentrification. Using the works of Colby Deal (Beautiful, Still), Jules Renault (Suspended in Time), and Lorenzo Grifantini (W10) as case studies, this paper argues that this type of photography, which explicitly utilizes an archival aesthetic, invites spectators to interrogate the intimate ties between home, memory, and identity. While melancholic, these images serve as a call to action and a form of speculation about the future—rejecting the shiny, computer-generated aesthetics of gentrification for a humanized, often gritty, and authentic version of home.

‘The thing will be alive’: Nancy Newhall and a Vision for Photography

From the 1940s until 1974, the American curator, writer and editor Nancy Newhall was a pivotal and visionary figure in the emergence of the field of creative photography in the USA. Newhall’s collaborative work over these decades was foundational in establishing a framework for creative practice in photography – including exhibitions, institutions, publications and public discourse. Newhall’s personal correspondence, in particular, illuminates her bold advocacy in developing a constellation of opportunities to support the practise of and public audience for creative photography, while her published writing and collaborative creative work with photographers created a framework for text and image experiments.

Photographic Practices among Albanian Families in Kosovo

Photography records “the cultural inventory” not only of material culture but also of relationships between people. As John Collier Jr. wrote, “the photographic inventory can record not only the range of artifacts in a home but also their relationship to each other, the style of their placement in space, all the aspects that define and express the way in which people use and order their space and possessions” (Collier, John, Jr., and Malcolm Collier. 1986. Visual Anthropology, Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 45). In this paper the family photography practices among Albanian families in Kosovo will be discussed. The paper will focus on the practices about (a) what they do with photography, (b) what it offers them, (c) how they treat it, (d) how attitudes toward photography have changed through generations, (e) how family photography presents the Kosovar family, (f) intergenerational connection, power and the idea of an ideal family, and so on. I analyze the differences between generations in family photographic practices from 1950 till 2014, and will look into the importance that photography has for family continuity and communion, based on stories collected about the deportation of families and their separation during the 1999 war in Kosovo. How did Albanian people try to hide family photos during that war, and how did their photos survive during it? How are people linked through family photography? What is compensated through photographs?

Dark Stars

Carl Van Vechten created a set of portraits of African American entertainers who knew each other through an interracial New York—London circuit during the interwar period. Less studied than the New York—Paris axis, this network offers rich insights for those interested in this important moment in modernist and African American cultural histories. Best known for the controversial racial views promulgated in his infamous novel Nigger Heaven (1926), Van Vechten, in his photographic practice, reveals a different approach to race. An analysis of his photographs reveals that he and this cohort refashioned Blackness in their own terms. Blackness was displaced to expressive shadow, becoming a malleable sign divorced from the body that allowed them to negotiate racial identities that were distinguished from inherited stereotypes. The acknowledgment that race was a social construct opened up new possibilities for living unfettered by traditional constraints on African American lives.

Bureaucratic Portraiture and Practices of Citizenship

AbstractIn lay and academic discourse, bureaucracy almost seems coterminous with the production and circulation of paper, writing, and type. Indeed, the flows of bureaucratic paperwork and documentation weigh heavy, but how are other media and material forms implicated in bureaucratic relationships and encounters? This Special Section considers the photographic portrait as an enduring bureaucratic technology across different histories and geographies. How are people's likenesses key media of social recognition and aspirational performances of citizenship? Given that making and circulating images is now widely accessible across the globe, how has photography become a significant means through which subjects struggle for recognition in the contemporary moment? Focusing on state borders and categories, we argue that bureaucracy's demand for identification documents has not only sustained photographic practices but also shaped the ways people in liminal positions advance claims of citizenship.