Photographic Practice Research Articles

A photographic essay on socio-economic organisation – temporary shelters in Kelowna, British Columbia (Canada)

The essay considers socio-economic organisation from the perspective of monopoly capitalism analysis, a strand of heterodox economics. The centre-piece of the essay is a photographic study of two temporary overnight shelters in Kelowna, one of the principal cities in British Columbia, Canada. Monopoly capitalism analysis has not previously drawn on photographic practices as an approach to inquiry. A characteristic of monopoly capitalist economies is that market-oriented, large corporations influence socio-economic organisation more generally. The essential practices of those corporations thereby penetrate the nooks and crannies of market economies. The essay is especially concerned with practices such as control, constraints on freedom, exercise of voice, and dehumanisation. The photographs and accompanying text – contextual discussions of monopoly capitalism and temporary shelters, and a caption for each image in the sequence – work together to show that traits of temporary overnight shelters in Kelowna are consistent with monopoly capitalist practices. It is suggested that such traits will be fossilised in the forever future of socio-economic systems, unless people’s awareness and challenge lead to choice of a different development path. The case-study demonstrates how photographs may enrich analysis of socio-economic organisation more widely, beyond the particular circumstances that it addresses.

The changing face of my jazz photographic practice

This article is a reflection on my jazz photography practice and how it has changed with my involvement in academic research after becoming actively involved in the Jazz Studies cluster at the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research (BCMCR), Birmingham City University and starting a close collaboration with jazz scholar Dr Pedro Cravinho. My practice evolved from photographing musicians playing at gigs to visualising the jazz scene and musicians from a different perspective which includes aspects of their off-stage lives. Through our discussions and common interests in the local jazz scene(s), Cravinho and I began developing a research process in which photography is the visual driver but is underpinned by Pedro’s rigorous academic input. Our collaboration is built on my documentary photography practice and Pedro’s ethnomusicological research background.

МЕЖДУ ИНДЕКСАЛЬНЫМ И ИКОНИЧЕСКИМ: ФОТОГРАФИИ В КОНТЕКСТЕ РАЗВИТИЯ НЕЙРОННЫХ СЕТЕЙ

The rapid development of technoscience calls into question the usual ways of perception and traditional practices of information analysis, in particular, one of the challenges for the communication society has been the development of artificial intelligence capable of creating images that are almost indistinguishable from paintings and photographs, this is clearly visible in the discussions that are developing today around photography and push us to think about the semiotic shift taking place in this field. The article observes three ways for a photographer to work with neural networks, each of which has its own limits of applicability: image processing, image creation based on the style of a famous photographer, image generation "from scratch". The key examples of neural networks at the disposal of photographers and artists are analyzed, their features and expressive capabilities are indicated, as well as those aesthetic and semiological issues that are issues that are actualized by the introduction of artificial intelligence into photographic practice. Based on the results of the study, the authors come to the conclusion that the semiotic shifts occurring in the field of photography challenge traditional forms of representation and have a fundamental impact on how the categories of authorship and viewership can be understood in the modern sociocultural process.

Robin Hood Gardens and the Brutalist Image

This article contributes to cultural geography’s continued interest in exploring how images and photographic practices have shaped representations and engagements with architectural space. Using the Robin Hood Gardens Estate – a Brutalist social housing estate in East London as an example, it interrogates how visual strategies associated with the grid, the interruption and the ruin shape different narratives and representations of Brutalist architecture. At the same time, it extends discussions within cultural geography which surround Brutalism and the role that representations play in how the built landscape is mediated, politicised and encountered through different image making strategies, highlighting the importance of the ‘image’ to Brutalism as a style. It concludes by asserting the value of exploring how buildings are represented and how different photographic and image making practices continue to mediate our engagement with the built landscape and inform wider politics associated with specific architectural styles.

Creating change: exploring the merit, mechanism, and necessity of artistic research in addressing ecological crises

Among the many complementary forms of knowledge-making, the artistic practice plays an essential, yet often overlooked role in influencing ecologically oriented decision-making. In my own ongoing visual research, I’ve experienced first-hand how documentary photography is uniquely able to reveal deep, qualitative insights that would otherwise remain obscure to canonical research methodologies. Through both a critical and reflexive analysis of my photographic practice exploring the complex ethical, ecological, and aesthetic relationships between people and bees, this essay explores how artistic research can elegantly—and effectively—catalyse more eco-oriented behaviours, policies, and outcomes.

Presence as Absence: The Homely and the Unhomely in Jewish Photography under Nazism

This article traces the change in practice and the transition of meaning in the photographs taken in Jewish homes in Germany under the Nazi regime. It draws on the ontological duality of absence and presence embedded in the medium of photography to analyze examples of such photographs selected from numerous archival and private collections, discerning a move away from the practice of interior photography as a tool of social affirmation in the late Weimar Republic toward its attestation of absence and loss shortly before emigration from Germany. Employing the Freudian term uncanny in its original spatial connotation as “unhomely,” the analysis contextualizes the latent presence of the inhabitants in images of vacant interiors through a discussion of the historical change in the domestic life of Jews in the face of the increasing Nazification of the public space. Focusing on the commemorative and mnemonic function of the photos, the article concludes by addressing their constitutive role in personal narratives as a private lieu de mémoire and as the generator of future postmemories.

Ways of seeing architecture and landscape in the voids of presence

The article examines the multi-layered roles of photography and film in “cultural translation,” representing architecture and landscape as a mediated place of conflicting visions, meanings and experiences. Taking the concept of the “production of space” as a starting point, it aims to contextualise the mediatory practices of photography and film by means of analysing the case study of a multifunctional building – the Krvavica Children’s Health Resort – designed in the 1960s by Rikard Marasović on the Adriatic coast of Croatia (formerly Yugoslavia). Focusing on an analysis of three paradigmatic examples of visual practices, the photographic series by Wolfgang Thaler (2011), the episode Mysterious Object in the Pine Forest filmed as part of the documentary series Slumbering Concrete (2016), and the experimental film A Record of Landscape without Prehistory by the artistic duo Doplgenger (2020), the article explores how photography and film communicate quality, in particular how mediated representations (re)create current interpretation and understanding of the intertwined heritage of modern architecture and landscape. Examining aspects of recording the site from different perspectives, a series of questions arise when addressing the issue of space, focused on its role in reshaping meanings, memories, emotions and experiences, narrating not only what architecture and landscape are but also what they could become and how they might be constituted in the context of different cultural identities.

Photos as a Cultural Code of the Odesa Region

In Ukraine, the transition to visualization is observed in the expansion of the range, change of functions, simplification of production and demonstration of the traditional photo image. Personal and family photographs play an important role in cultural memory, and working with photographs offers a particularly productive way to understand social and cultural aspects of memory. In the article proposed, I research the variability of the functions of photography in polyethnic and multicultural region of Southern Ukraine, taking as the main example the city of Odesa and the Odesa region. I seek to reproduce and describe the historical and cultural dynamics of the development of photographic practices in Odesa from art to craft, and eventually to everyday practice from the middle of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. I aim to reveal the ethno-cultural expressiveness of photographic practices among the multi-ethnic population of Odesa, to point out general and specific features, to investigate local differences of ethnographic groups, structures and everyday practices, features of material and spiritual culture, socio-cultural norms. During 2012-2019 independently or taking part in complex ethnographic expeditions of I. I. Mechnikov Odesa National University, I have conducted more than 150 general, 53 focused interviews and 68 semi-formalized interviews in 51 towns and villages of Odesa region, including Odesa, Balta, Bilyaivka, Podils’k, Chornomors’k and Izmail.

Fotografie i „efekt swojskości” (miejsca). O jednym szkicu krajoznawczym Elizy Orzeszkowej

The purpose of this article is to determine the influence of photographic practice on the construction of space that occurs in Eliza Orzeszkowa’s sketch entitled Niemen. Zdjęcia migawkowe. The main methodological premise is to apply to the analysis and interpretation of the literary text the findings that the history of 19th-century photography has made. It distinguished the basic functions of this medium, which, in a suitably modified version, are also present in Orzeszkowa’s text. The article thus analyzes what consists in: (1) archiving, (2) organizing, (3) modernizing knowledge and informing, and (4) illustrating. These functions actively shape the meanings of Orzeszkowa’s work, and when summed up, lead to the so-called homely effect. It consists in a three-level harmony between the subject and the place, which creates resonance in the area of cultural, intellectual and biographical experience.

Camera Phantasma: Reframing virtual photographies in the age of AI

The recent advent of virtual photography and artificial intelligence (specifically AI photography and diffusion models), presents a major challenge to both photographers and photography theory. All our common-sense assumptions about the ontology of the image now seem to be falling apart. Are these interlopers really photography? Can we hear the final death knell for the erstwhile medium in this era of ever-increasing media convergence and virtualisation? This practice-led investigation of these new media forms draws on the author’s recent creative work in virtual photographies, and similar interventions by other photographers and new media artists, seeking to augment and expand their practice using these new tools, whilst querying what photography really means today. From in-game photography to virtual exploration using Google Street View, to AI photography using the latest denoising diffusion models (such as Midjourney), there are surprising commonalities to explore between them, linking these new practices of image-making firmly back to traditions of lens-based photography. Rather than seeking a detailed map of this difficult new terrain, or a definitive ontology of emerging virtual photographies, the author reframes the discourse around practice, examining both photography as an evolving set of practices and also notions of media hauntology – specifically the spectral ways in which new media technologies are always haunted by prior practices and modes of communication. The importance of the frame to both traditional photography and new practices of virtual photography, is suggested as a vital and persistent dimension in photographic authorship. With that authorship increasingly contested by new generative methods, easy appropriation and AI image-making, the act of framing may become the best litmus test we have, for whether or not a photograph should be considered ‘real’ or valued.

Inventing a Selfie Studio

Abstract Through a case study of Istanbul’s Foto Görçek, playfully dubbed ‘the world’s first selfie studio’, this article focuses on the changing photographic practices from the mid-1940s–1960s in modern Turkey, which experienced a dramatic political transition during the 1950s with the introduction of the multi-party regime following three decades of strictly secular Kemalist rule. This study explores how Foto Görçek challenged and transformed studio practices in Turkey, particularly during its increasing popularity in the 1950s–1960s, by allowing people to take up Elizabeth Edwards’ notion of the ‘theater of the self’, or when the self also takes on the role of the photographer. Accordingly, the article looks at the affordances of the photo studio as a space where citizens reimagined their desired selves and when new ways of imagining the self were made available to them. Moreover, this study investigates how such new imagined selves in the aftermath of the Second World War served to renegotiate a desired modern Turkish identity resulting from the rigorous state-controlled nation-building process during the 1920s–1930s.

Ki te kapu o takau ringa - In the Hollow of my Hand: Wānanga based Photographic Approaches to Place Representation

Ka matakitaki iho au ki te riu o Waikato 
 Ano nei hei kapo kau ake maaku; 
 Ki te kapu o taku ringa, 
  
 “I look down on the valley of Waikato,  
 As though to hold it  
 In the hollow of my hand.” 
  
 The words above are from Māori King Tawhiao’s maioha (song poem), a representation of his love for his homelands of the Waikato and the region known today as the King Country. Now imagine a large-scale photograph: a close-up of cupped hands, holding an object carefully. The phrase above informs Professor Tom Roa and Dr. Rodrigo Hill’s current research project titled ‘Te Nehenehenui - The Ancient Enduring Beauty in the Great Forest of the King Country’. With this project still in its early stages the research team will present early and ongoing creative practice developments, discussions and ideas about photography practice, wānanga, and place representation. The project promotes the use of wānanga (forums and meetings of focus groups through which knowledge - mātauranga - is discussed and passed on) and other reflective practices, engaging with and led by mana whenua (guardians of the land) providing a thread which will guide the construction of the photographic images. The research fuses wānanga, that is Mātauranga Māori (Māori Knowledge), and photography practice in novel ways, aiming to move away and challenge core photographic conventions and Eurocentric modes of place representation. Roa and Hill understand wānanga as a fluid practice of engagement which can be with mana whenua or with the taiao - the environment - either by itself or with the mana whenua. This is the essence of Kaupapa Māori Research. 

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.