Role Of Photography Research Articles

A royal passion: Queen Victoria and photography

This is a richly illustrated exploration of Queen Victoria's portrayal in photography and her role in shaping the medium. In January 1839, photography was announced to the world. Two years prior, a young Queen Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland. These two events, while seemingly unrelated, marked the beginnings of a relationship that continued throughout the 19th century and helped construct the image of an entire age. A Royal Passion explores the connections between photography and the monarchy through Victoria's embrace of the new medium and her portrayal through the lens. Together with Prince Albert, the Queen amassed one of the earliest collections of photographs, including work by renowned photographers such as Roger Fenton, Gustave Le Gray, and Julia Margaret Cameron. Victoria was also the first British monarch to have her life recorded by the camera: images of her as wife, mother, widow, and empress proliferated around the world at a time when the British Empire spanned the globe. The featured essays consider Victoria's role in shaping the history of photography as well as photography's role in shaping the image of the Queen.

Frederick A. Cook: the role of photography in the making of his polar explorer-hero image

ABSTRACTThis paper aims to show how the photography of Frederick A. Cook (1865–1940) played an important role in the making of his polar explorer-hero image. It considers portraits and Arctic and Antarctic photographs that Cook used in his own publications and illustrated lectures, and which he provided for press articles. The paper is underpinned by discourse analysis and the concept of the photograph as a representation of reality filtered through various lenses. The visual impact and discursive messages of the photographs were aimed at situating readers and audiences in responsive attitudes that would generate a public persona which he exploited to increase his fame and heroic reputation. In time, Cook's photography also played a critical part in the collapse of the hero image.

EDITORIAL: Journalism with integrity

This is the third issue Pacific Journalism Review has published on the theme of investigative journalism in recent years. Our first issue (PJR, 2011) followed the first regional Investigative Journalism conference held at the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology in December 2010. In that issue, we argued that universities and academic journalists have an important role to play in building a culture of investigative reporting in the region. This issue follows up on that suggestion by focusing particularly on investigative journalism produced in an academic context. The second edition followed the ‘Back to the Source’ conference hosted by the Australian Centre for Investigative Journalism (ACIJ) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in September 2011 (PJR, 2012). Since our 2011 issue, pressures on the business model that once sustained high quality investigative journalism have continued to increase. As we go to press, photographers’ jobs at Fairfax media are threatened. Journalists have mobilised to focus public attention on the role of photographers as newsgatherers. Walkley Award-winning Fairfax photographer Kate Geraghty’s picture of asylum seekers holding up their identity cards as they are transported in buses into the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea in 2013 is a reminder of how images recorded by journalists courageous enough to defy official restrictions on media have both humanised and publicised the plight of asylum seekers in our region.

Re-writing the Official Narrative of Bloody Sunday: The Role of Photographs

Le 15 juin 2010, l’enquête sur Bloody Sunday, aussi connue sous le nom d’enquête Saville, a publié son rapport sur les événements du 30 janvier 1972. Trente-huit ans s’étaient écoulés depuis la première enquête publique sur Bloody Sunday, menée par Lord Widgery, et dont le rapport avait été considéré par beaucoup comme une mascarade destinée à « blanchir » les soldats. Cet article propose d’examiner le rôle joué par les photographies dans la réécriture de la version officielle de Bloody Sunday, à la fois dans la déconstruction du rapport Widgery, et dans la reconstruction de la nouvelle version officielle par Lord Saville. En effet, tant que la version des faits exposée dans le rapport Widgery restait la version officielle, les photographies représentaient un puissant moyen de subversion : leur pouvoir émotionnel pouvait se révéler très efficace pour provoquer une prise de conscience en choquant l’opinion publique. Elles furent donc utilisées dans plusieurs livres qui plaidaient en faveur d’une nouvelle enquête. Après la mise en place de l’enquête Saville, elles furent aussi d’un grand secours aux juges du tribunal d’enquête lorsqu’ils durent s’atteler à reconstruire la séquence des événements minute par minute. On peut considérer que l’enquête Saville, en réintégrant ces photographies dans son rapport, a aussi donné une reconnaissance officielle à ces « fragments de vérité », qui avaient été pour la plupart peu exploités ou ignorés par la première enquête.

Da fotograf Peter Elfelt “føjede billedet til historieskrivningen”

NB: Artiklen er på dansk, kun resuméet er på engelsk. Louise Wolthers: When photographer Peter Elfelt “added the picture to the writing of history”. The Centre for Maps and Pictures of The Royal Library contains a large collection of photographs, accounting books and records from Peter Elfelt (1866-1931). Photo­graphs from Elfelt & Co. was already marketed as “historic pictures” to their contem­poraries and have frequently been used in later works, particularly popular history books. The article analyses a number of the sociocultural contexts, which the pictures have functioned in and illustrates which type of Danish history the photographs have mediated. Among other things, Elfelt’s work as a modern business man and his role as ‘auteur’ are included, while focusing on the use of his photographs in advertising for one of his major customers, clothing manufacturer Francis Zachariae. The pho­tographs primarily show to have communicated and supported a national romantic and nostalgic view of history, which has gained authority due to the apparent objec­tivity of the photograph. In the article, more principal questions on the role of photographs in historiography are touched upon. Official and private picture collections contain extensive photographic material from the previous century which may contribute to a historic knowledge which cannot be gained through written sources. But why are photographs then solely used in the historic field as passive illustrations? Which challenges do they represent to the critical methodology and how can we even address the historical pho­tograph?

Encounters: Photography from the Sheldon Museum of Art Edited by Brandon K. Ruud (review)

Reviewed by: Encounters: Photography from the Sheldon Museum of Art Edited by Brandon K. Ruud Katherine Ryckman Siegwarth Encounters: Photography from the Sheldon Museum of Art. Edited by Brandon K. Ruud. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013. ix + 242 pp. Photographs, notes, index. $50.00 paper. In an increasingly connected world, photography has the ability to depict cultures near and far, transmitting ideas and perceptions around the globe. The intersection of cultures and the role of photography within these encounters is the topic of this recent publication, which proves to be an apt lens for analyzing the photography collection of the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, Nebraska. Brandon K. Ruud, the Sheldon’s curator of transnational American art and editor of Encounters, creates the framework for addressing transnationalism within six sections, including discussions of technology, gender, and international exchanges. Extending this methodology, Ruud turns transnationalism into “a metaphor for analyzing exchanges that occur on a scale smaller than that of nations” in order “to explore encounters internal to the United States.” Looking at how transnationalism applies within the United States is an interesting approach. Encounters successfully references America’s melting-pot foundation while emphasizing the rich multiculturalism, rather than the homogeneity, present within its borders. Although the Sheldon is identified as an American art museum, the international scope of its photography collection gives validity to the publication’s chosen theme by demonstrating how travel, immigration, and foreign relationships impact American culture. Spanning the medium’s history, the publication contains over one hundred quality reproductions of the Sheldon’s collection. While the book is thematic in approach, each section loosely follows a chronological order, showing a progression in photographic aesthetics that also contextualizes the evolution of contemporary thought. The occasional contemporary work appearing out of place and surrounded by nineteenth-century works enlivens the viewing, as readers discover interesting juxtapositions that allow them to create their own connections between images. An attractively formatted publication, Encounters establishes [End Page 190] the strength and diversity of the Sheldon Museum of Art’s photography collection, certainly one worth seeing. The book’s ambition is commendable and reflects the Sheldon’s commitment to advancing the critical study of photography. However, the extensive range of topics, coupled with the poetic language of the chapter introductions, tend to obscure the book’s intent and flow, making it difficult to find connections between sections. Additionally, many of the individual photo descriptions do not overtly refer to transnationalism, once again muddling the overall theme. With that said, the descriptions are extensively detailed with interesting anecdotes and formal analyses, making this volume accessible, and rightly so, not only to scholars but also to the more diverse audience who may visit this university museum. Katherine Ryckman Siegwarth Fort Worth, Texas Copyright © 2014 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

De l’autoportrait à l’autobiographie by Jan Baetens, Alexander Streitberger

Reviews 253 previously published material), even if the presentation remains on the whole more impressionistic than entirely convincing. University of Kansas John T. Booker Baetens, Jan, et Alexander Streitberger. De l’autoportrait à l’autobiographie. Caen: Minard, 2011. ISBN 978-2-256-91166-8. Pp. 263. 28 a. This attractive publication’s back cover states:“les études réunies dans ce volume collectif traitent de la façon dont la photographie peut s’allier aux mots pour retracer un vécu personnel.” This description is an indispensable complement to the work’s title because it underscores the importance of photographs throughout the collective volume. Indeed, the “self-portrait” of the title is meant to point toward one of the oldest genres of photography, according to the well-written introduction by the coeditors . This is not the only recent publication to focus on the interplay of photographs and words in works containing autobiographical elements, but it is one of the best, thanks to its balance; while the chapters deal with a vast array of predominantly French-language works, their analyses come together to form a cohesive whole. There is a surprising lack of repetition in this book, even if some of the canonical theoretical sources reappear from time to time, including Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, along with Gilles Mora and Claude Nori’s 1983 Manifeste photobiographique, the subject of a wonderful chapter co-written by Jan Baetens and Anneleen Masschelein. Other chapters turn to authors and artists including Marguerite Duras, Georges Perec, Hervé Guibert,Alix Cléo Roubaud, Denis Roche, Jean Le Gac, and Sophie Calle.While much has been written about the role of photographs in the work of Duras, Perec, and Calle, the chapters in this publication contain new insights and refreshing perspectives that are inspired in part by their ‘conversation’ with and juxtaposition to studies of other media. In their introduction, Baetens and Streitberger indicate that this volume bears witness in its very structure to the fact that photography, literature, and plastic arts can no longer be compartmentalized. Bringing together the terms ‘self-portrait’—a description of oneself that is more‘analytical’since it is conceived of in visual terms— and‘autobiography’—a description that has always been made up of‘narrative’—allows the scholars who have contributed to this volume to address the many questions caught up in these literary and visual creations from a variety of theoretical angles. Baetens and Streitberger argue convincingly that ‘contemporary practices’ of life narratives are strikingly original and therefore deserve our attention. The co-editors also evoke the crucial interplay between lived experience and the imaginary, between the real world and the symbolic; this is an interaction that comes out in unusual and diverse ways in the selected texts. The introduction highlights the fact that recent autobiographical texts constantly draw attention to the complexity of memory, revealing how its fragile, fragmentary nature obliges each author and artist to continually reinvent his or her own biography. This volume participates in very clear and helpful ways in an ongoing critical discussion of texts that are composed of words and photographs (whether real or imagined), and provides a valuable addition to a growing bibliography on the role of visual contributions to autobiographical works. University of Notre Dame (IN) Alison Rice Barr, Philippe. Rétif de la Bretonne spectateur nocturne: une esthétique de la pauvreté. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012. ISBN 978-90-420-3539-3. Pp. 192. 40 a. Pornographic and prolific often come to mind when recalling printer and writer Nicolas-Edme Rétif/Restif de la Bretonne. Nicknamed le Voltaire des femmes de chambre and le Rousseau du ruisseau, Rétif laced his Balzacian-like output with familial and voyeuristic details excerpted from his experience as a member of the Third Estate. Barr, however, takes a different view of him in this treatise. He contributes to the rehabilitation of Rétif by portraying him not as a peasant philosophe of the lower classes but as an artiste, or more closely, a poète who depicted the poor with esthetic sensibility. In Les nuits de Paris, published in 16 parties between 1788 and 1793, Rétif uses Paris after dark as the setting to...

Jean Mohr: photography on the world’s edge

The work of Jean Mohr, the photographer who has often collaborated with John Berger on projects covering migrancy, refuge, displacement, subaltern classes (and their passing) and on Palestine (with Edward Said), is celebrated here. The author argues that the nature and role of photography is rethought by Mohr, as his photographic work, which is integral to the text, transcends time and place to suggest a universality.

The Role of Photographs in Face-to-Face Interactions involving Younger and Older Neurotypical Adults

The purpose of this preliminary investigation was to explore the role photographs play in communication interactions involving neurotypical adults. Participants included 10 people from 2 age groups: younger adults between 23 and 25 years of age and older adults between 61 and 74 years of age. Referencing photographs to support one-on-one conversations between an examiner and either a younger or older neurotypical adult speaker occurred approximately 20% of the time. Younger participants relied solely on nonverbal communication in the form of a pointing gesture to convey their intent less than 2% of the time, whereas older participants never relied solely on pointing gestures to convey intent. This suggests that typical speakers treat the referencing of photographs as a supplemental rather than primary communication strategy during face-to-face interactions.

W kraju młodych boginek

Esej przedstawia dynamikę relacji między fotografią a polityką i praktyką kolonialną, na przykładzie działalności i prac Kazimierza Zagórskiego, działającego w Kongo w latach 20. i 30. XX w. Zestawienie serii fotografii fryzur autorstwa Zagórskiego ze współczesnymi pracami J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere i Lorny Simpson pokazuje rolę fotografii w konstruowaniu naznaczonej przemocą kolonialnej dominacji, ale też budowaniu postkolonialnej tożsamości wolności.

‘Our Failure of Empathy’: Kevin Carter, Susan Sontag, and the Problems of Photography

In a media-saturated age, can photographs still promote empathy? The commoditization and consequent banalization of photography has led not only to what has been condemned as the opportunistic exploitation of images by consumerist bourgeois society, but also the inhibition of empathy in discourse and practice. Exploring the role of photography in relation to empathy through an examination of the visual impact, psychological effects and emotional influence of photographic media, this paper builds on the work of Susan Sontag in On Photography (1977) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) to focus on the case of a Pulitzer Prize-winning image by the late South African photojournalist Kevin Carter. The haunting photograph, taken during the 1993 famine in Sudan, shows a starving Sudanese girl on her way to a feeding centre, shadowed by a vulture lurking behind her. Sontag’s observations are directly applicable to Carter’s case: the act of photographing may unconsciously encourage the prioritization of images above individuals, thus inhibiting empathy in the photographer. Overexposure to disaster images in the media also hampers viewers’ emotional identification with suffering photographic subjects, while the dominance of the Internet in the modern age may have in fact intensified photography’s anesthetizing effect. Viewer apathy further stems from the ways in which the photographic medium might influence one’s emotional responses by changing perceptions of people, and indeed, of time itself. Yet while photography may impose obstacles to empathy, the vital issue that Carter’s photograph demonstrates is not merely how photographs are taken but how they are interpreted, applied, and employed to prompt social action.

Restoring the Colors of Friedrich Weinwurm's Unitas: Hazards of Black-and-White Photography

In the field of monument restoration of modern architecture, photography represents one of the most significant sources of information on a building’s original form. Modern photography, with its technologies and imaging methods, has often not preserved the actual form of structures but rather illustrated the photographer’s artistic impression of the object. Studies of, for example, the Unitas housing complex, which was constructed in the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, in 1931, show the role of photographs of new objectivity in publicizing the project and at the same time point to some problems brought forth in the process of its restoration. This article discusses the significance of the Unitas housing complex within the architectonic discussion of the period, along with the position of its architect, Friedrich Weinwurm, in the local avant-garde. It provides information on the artists who photographed the complex, characterizes their artistic approaches, and evaluates the contribution of these photographs to the process of restoration. On the background of the monument restoration of the complex, the contribution shows the standard approaches of the Monuments Board and the reconstruction’s architects, and comments critically on the absence of restoration research. Only sound surveys and subsequent laboratory optical/physical and chemical/technological analyses of selected samples supplied reliable information on the original coloring of the complex. The limited documentary ability of black-and-white photography in the restoration of the original colors was confirmed in an experiment during which the authors photographed a model of the original plaster and prepared photos that differentiated the exposure length and the properties of the filters. This study reveals the necessity of applying all available sources of information, from archive research through restoration research up to laboratory analysis, in the process of monument restoration of modern architectural works.

The City Vanishes: Urban Landscape in Staged Chinese Photography

Recent practice of staged photography in China renders views of urban landscapes as active elements in performative actions directed for the camera. These cityscapes, featured in photographs produced by artists such as Li Wei, Cao Fei, Chi Peng and Xing Danwen, not only reflect the country's rapid urbanisation but also ongoing processes of globalisation. The same processes reconfigure time–space relations around the globe and offer an opportunity to ‘decentre’ the world, but they equally escape capture and document in real time. Fictional photographic elaborations of their accompanying elements, such as the technologisation of culture and the inability to fix a stable image of the future, provide a point of departure to explore photography's role in response to the challenges posed by global urban living. This issue also creates a space for rethinking the critical potential of the medium.

Between Manufacturing and Landscapes: Edward Burtynsky and the Photography of Ecology

The industrial sublime has become the signature trope of Edward Burtynsky's photographs to such a degree that it makes his images now fairly quick to recognize. This essay begins with a critique of the way the conventions of the sublime frame the photography of nature in favor of awe and anxiety over detail and activism. Burtynsky pushes the environmental image to more complicated ecological stakes by making photographs that question the relation of image to commodity extraction, recycling, and the implication of the mechanics of the photograph in the object it captures. Commodities live complicated lives that pass through matters involving national economies, corporate agendas, labor, environmental stress, and the consumer object—all of which involve aesthetic elements and affect ecological conditions. In such focus on the material and affective life of the commodity, Burtynsky only peripherally involves humans, which gives his work a post-human feel. Another post-human choice in Burtynsky's work involves his increasing use of the aerial shot or the use of a crane or ladder, which aligns the camera with aerial technology from planes to satellites, complex machines that have important and vexed relations to specific environmental conditions. By combining an analysis of manufactured landscapes with manufactured images, this essay considers the problems and positive potentials concerning the role of photography in ecological critique.

John Heartfield and the agitated image: photography, persuasion, and the rise of avant-garde photomontage

Working in Germany in the interwar era, Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld, 1891-1968) developed an innovative method of appropriating and reusing photographs to powerful political effect. A pioneer of modern photomontage, he assembled images that transformed the meaning of the mass-media photos from which they were taken. In John Heartfield and the Agitated Image, Andres Mario Zervigon explores this crucial period in the life and work of this brilliant, radical artist whose desire to disclose the truth obscured by the mainstream press and the propaganda of politicians made him a de facto prosecutor of Germany's visual culture. Zervigon charts the evolution of Heartfield's photomontage from an act of antiwar resistance into a formalized and widely disseminated political art in the Weimar Republic, when his work appeared on everything from campaign posters to book covers. He explains how Heartfield's engagement with montage arose from dissatisfaction with photography's capacity to represent the modern world, and the result was likely the most important combination of avantgarde art and politics in the twentieth century. A rare look at Heartfield's early and middle years as an artist and designer, this book provides a new understanding of photography's role at this critical juncture in history.

Photography versus the Historical Record: The Role of Photography in Rouen's Gros-Horloge Restoration

In France, the use of photography in the process of enhancing architectural heritage started as early as the mid-nineteenth century, with surveys of monuments before and after restoration work, identification of national landmark campaigns, and establishment of photographic archives. The analysis of its use by Louis Sauvageot in the restoration of the Gros-Horloge of Rouen in 1889 reveals that its impact is particularly complex and ambiguous. The spread of photography confirmed rather than questioned a stylistic approach that was used more and more in the creation of monuments typical of every historical period. But what is more surprising is the paradoxical effect of the existence in France of extensive photographic documentation of past restorations; there is very low interest in these archives demonstrated by those involved with the restorations of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Misunderstandings created by the transformations of these monuments are fed by a forgetfulness of past restorations and by the distribution of inaccurately dated photographic reproductions. These errors multiply the effects of the poor interpretation of astonishing historical hybrids created by the restorers of the nineteenth century.

Queer knowledge and the politics of the gaze in contemporary South African photography: Zanele Muholi and others

This article is concerned chiefly with work by the contemporary South African lesbian photographer and activist Zanele Muholi, drawing some comparisons with photographs by Sabelo Mlangeni and Lunga Kama. All of these photographers are concerned with the visibility of sexual minorities, the politics of the gaze, the construction of archives, the role of photography that is activist, and the generation of new ideas about community and citizenship. Muholi's work, in particular, speaks to tensions between the body politic and the biopolitics of the black body, the autochthonous subject of tradition and the queer agent of utopian possibility. In teasing out some of the complexities of these tensions and their implications for audiences of the photographs, this article considers thematic concerns and formal attributes of a number of works. It interrogates, too, their implications for thinking about queer futurity in the postcolony, and what their reception reveals about the judgement – and tolerance – of the new custodians of national cultural identities in South Africa.

Introduzione. Scienza, esplorazione ed eroismo: Robert Falcon Scott al Polo Sud

The centenary of Scott’s arrival at the South Pole in 1912 and of his tragic death during the return journey has been celebrated through exhibitions and conferences, while a general reassessment of Scott’s figure has been provided by several scholars. In particular, the scientific role of the 1910-12 British Antarctic expedition is now emphasized: Scott’s aim was not only to reach the Pole but especially to collect data and geological specimens of a completely unknown continent. This introduction focuses on the scientific dimension of Scott’s enterprise, giving special attention to the role of photography, employed during the expedition as a tool of scientific exploration, and to the crucial impact of photographs on the modern perception of the Antarctic. Another important point concerns the Scott Polar Research Institute (Cambridge, UK), founded in 1920 to commemorate Scott, that laid the foundations of Polar studies and pioneered scientific research throughout the twentieth century.

AN IMAGE-BASED MODELING EXPERIENCE ABOUT SOCIAL FACILITIES, BUILT DURING THE FASCIST PERIOD IN MIDDLE ITALY

Abstract. The main focus of this article is to explain a teaching activity. This experience follows a research aimed to testing innovative systems for formal and digital analysis of architectural building. In particular, the field of investigation is the analytical drawing. An analytical draw allows to develope an interpretative and similar models of reality; these models are built using photomodeling techniques and are designed to re-write modern and contemporary architecture. The typology of the buildings surveyed belong to a cultural period, called Modern Movement, historically placed between the two world wars. The Modern Movement aimed to renew existing architectural principle and to a functional redefinition of the same one. In Italy these principles arrived during the Fascist period. Heritage made up of public social buildings (case del Balilla, G.I.L., recreation center...) built during the fascist period in middle Italy is remarkable for quantity and in many cases for architectural quality. This kind of buildings are composed using pure shapes: large cube (gyms) alternate with long rectangular block containing offices creates compositions made of big volumes and high towers. These features are perfectly suited to the needs of a surveying process by photomodeling where the role of photography is central and where there is the need to identify certain and easily distinguishable points on all picture, leaning on the edges of the volume or lininig on the texture discontinuity. The goal is the documentation to preserve and to develop buildings and urban complexes of modern architecture, directed to encourage an artistic preservation.

Photography in Dentistry: Theory and Techniques in Modern Documentation (2012)

Photography in Dentistry: Theory and Techniques in Modern Documentation (2012) Authors: Pasquale Loiacono, and Luca Pascoletti Publisher: Quintessence Publishing Co. Ltd. Price: £110.00 ISBN: 978-8874921690 This book consists of two parts, containing 13 chapters on 333 pages. The book is divided into ‘theory’ and ‘techniques’ and the latter makes up about one-third of the volume. The book is designed for the beginner in Dental Photography and contents include a wide range of subjects ranging from general principles, concepts of exposure to the role of photography in clinical practice. Items such as photographic hardware as well as practical aspects such as recommendations …