PhotographiesPub Date : 2023-08-09DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2023.2233524
Josh Ellenbogen
{"title":"“WORDS NOT SPENT TODAY BUY SMALLER IMAGES TOMORROW”: READING PHOTOGRAPHS AND THE EMERGENCE OF POSTWAR PHOTOGRAPHIC CRITICISM IN THE USA","authors":"Josh Ellenbogen","doi":"10.1080/17540763.2023.2233524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2023.2233524","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the idea of ‘reading photographs’ as it circulated in postwar American criticism. It looks principally to the work of Henry Holmes Smith and Minor White and the way in which they deployed the idea, as well as the institutional framework of photographic journals in which their writing circulated. The essay examines the role that the concept played in helping establish photo-criticism as an established genre of writing, and explores particular emphases in that writing that proceeded from the claim audiences ‘read photographs’; of these emphases, the most important and germinative ones centered around photographic traditions and their capacity to establish the parameters of the photographic medium itself. From the vantage delineated above, the essay also situates photo-criticism in a larger universe of postwar concern, one that centered on the mutual convertibility of pictorial and linguistic forms: the development of ‘visual literacy’ discourse, protocols for training photographers as these emerged in the 1960s, and broader agendas in the postwar American university system, with all their interest in visual pedagogy.","PeriodicalId":39970,"journal":{"name":"Photographies","volume":"16 1","pages":"337 - 358"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47842221","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PhotographiesPub Date : 2023-08-09DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2023.2235361
Conohar Scott
{"title":"La Vetta e L’Abisso: carrara","authors":"Conohar Scott","doi":"10.1080/17540763.2023.2235361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2023.2235361","url":null,"abstract":"La Vetta e L’Abisso is a sequence of photographs which address the problems associated with over-mining in the famous white marble mines of Carrara, Tuscany. As a visual essay, the series attempts to undercut contemporary notions of the sublime in the documentation of mineral extractivism, which has been dominant in recent years due to the popularity of photographers such as Edward Burtynsky. Furthermore, the title of the essay, and the display of the monochrome large format photographs with the addition of a gold-selenium tone, alludes to eco-Marxist notions of commodity fetishism and social alienation, which underpin the exploitative logic of capitalist (re-)production. Drawing on the authors previously published critical commentaries on the qualities of photography and environmental activism, this essay proposes an approach to praxis which undercuts the distant passivity of the sublime in favour of encountering the negative effects of extractivism first-hand.","PeriodicalId":39970,"journal":{"name":"Photographies","volume":"16 1","pages":"414 - 431"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48127067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PhotographiesPub Date : 2023-08-09DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2023.2227653
Claudia Arozqueta
{"title":"Malaise: a journey through the Gothic fictions of Daniela Edburg","authors":"Claudia Arozqueta","doi":"10.1080/17540763.2023.2227653","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2023.2227653","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how Mexican artist Daniela Edburg has been using Gothic idioms to raise awareness of both personal and environmental ailments. For over two decades, Edburg has combined digital photography and textiles to create fictional settings in which women are depicted in domestic spaces or natural landscapes in bizarre situations. Some of her characters are attacked by monsters, while others appear in a state of escapism, and many have encounters with death or disease. In this paper, I examine the connections between Edburg’s art and Gothic tropes including the uncanny, the return of the dead, madness and disease, intrusions into domestic space, the clash of old and new, and the yearning for reconnection with nature. The text begins with an analysis of her most recent project, Malaise, which alludes to Frankenstein and crystallizes core concerns that have persisted throughout her career. Later, I examine prior series by the artist to demonstrate how gothic traits have always been present in Edburg’s work. Using a gothic style, the artist has constantly reflected on how humans relate to the natural world through the artificial, as well as the consequences of this attitude toward life, which has led us to a dystopian future.","PeriodicalId":39970,"journal":{"name":"Photographies","volume":"16 1","pages":"393 - 412"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45336955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PhotographiesPub Date : 2023-08-09DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2023.2237966
Meghan L. E. Kirkwood
{"title":"Alternative methods in contemporary South African landscape photography","authors":"Meghan L. E. Kirkwood","doi":"10.1080/17540763.2023.2237966","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2023.2237966","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the work of three contemporary South African photographers whose adaptations of landscape photography support inquiry into themes such as agency, identity, and belonging. None of these artists self-identifies as a landscape photographer, but each has taken up the genre to address topics of social concern such as: colonialism, under-documented histories, and the geographical imagination. Jean Brundrit adapts high-resolution survey technology to chart waves; Cedric Nunn creates extended captions to reorient views of the modern Eastern Cape landscape in relation to Xhosa history; and Francki Burger layers negatives in the darkroom to construct ethereal environments that examine emotive connections to land. These artists draw upon photographic techniques that may be considered ‘alternative’ in relation to traditional modes of landscape photography. In doing so, they challenge, reinterpret, and expand the definition of what constitutes a landscape image and landscape photography. Further, their respective works offer insight into the evolution of the genre from its nineteenth and early twentieth century applications in South Africa, as well as its utility for socially-concerned artists in the post-apartheid era.","PeriodicalId":39970,"journal":{"name":"Photographies","volume":"16 1","pages":"434 - 451"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43465892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PhotographiesPub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2023.2189158
A. Wasielewski
{"title":"AUTHENTICITY AND THE POOR IMAGE IN THE AGE OF DEEP LEARNING","authors":"A. Wasielewski","doi":"10.1080/17540763.2023.2189158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2023.2189158","url":null,"abstract":"Deep learning techniques are increasingly used to automate categorization and identification tasks for large datasets of digital photographs. For rasterized images formats, such as JPEGs, GIFs, and PNGs, the analysis happens on the level of individual pixels. Given this, digital images used in deep learning applications are typically restricted to relatively low-resolution formats to conform to the standards of popular pre-trained neural networks. Using Hito Steyerl’s conception of the ‘poor image’ as a theoretical frame, this article investigates the use of these relatively low-resolution images in automated analysis, exploring the ways in which they may be deemed preferable to higher-resolution images for deep learning applications. The poor image is rich in value in this context, as it limits the undesirable ‘noise’ of too much detail. In considering the case of automated art authentication, this article argues that a notion of authenticity is beginning to emerge that raises questions around Walter Benjamin’s often-cited definition in relation to mass image culture. Copies or reproductions are now forming the basis for a new model of authenticity, which exists latently in the formal properties of a digital image.","PeriodicalId":39970,"journal":{"name":"Photographies","volume":"16 1","pages":"191 - 210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44750124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PhotographiesPub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2023.2189159
N. Malevé
{"title":"PRACTICES OF BENCHMARKING, VULNERABILITY IN THE COMPUTER VISION PIPELINE","authors":"N. Malevé","doi":"10.1080/17540763.2023.2189159","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2023.2189159","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":39970,"journal":{"name":"Photographies","volume":"16 1","pages":"173 - 189"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44030082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PhotographiesPub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2023.2189286
Emily Pugh, Tracy Stuber
{"title":"PHOTOGRAPHY AS MACHINE VISION: THE ROLE OF IMAGING TECHNOLOGIES IN ART HISTORY","authors":"Emily Pugh, Tracy Stuber","doi":"10.1080/17540763.2023.2189286","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2023.2189286","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes the relationship between photography and machine vision by examining its prehistory, as embodied in the art-historical photo archive. It characterizes the introduction of machine vision to the world of libraries, archives, and museums as a renewed (rather than wholly new) effort to mechanize or systematize art and its history. Assumptions and attitudes about photography embedded in the photo archive are therefore easily and often inconspicuously reproduced in efforts to study art computationally. Noting this repetition, this paper reframes the debate about art-historical applications of computer vision to emphasize the issues this technology raises about what constitutes art-historical work. The question is not whether we should use computer vision or computers for art-historical inquiry, but rather, what kinds of activities we ask computers to perform. Understanding machine vision in the context of its prehistory is critical for explicating its relationship to photography, and the role of photography and digital images in the study of visual culture more generally.","PeriodicalId":39970,"journal":{"name":"Photographies","volume":"16 1","pages":"211 - 233"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43691407","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PhotographiesPub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2023.2189285
Gabriel Pereira, Bruno Moreschi
{"title":"LIVING WITH IMAGES FROM LARGE-SCALE DATA SETS: A CRITICAL PEDAGOGY FOR SCALING DOWN","authors":"Gabriel Pereira, Bruno Moreschi","doi":"10.1080/17540763.2023.2189285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2023.2189285","url":null,"abstract":"The emergence of contemporary computer vision coincides with the growth and dissemination of large-scale image data sets. The grandeur of such image collections has raised fascination and concern. This article critically interrogates the assumption of scale in computer vision by asking: What can be gained by scaling down and living with images from large-scale data sets? We present results from a practice-based methodology: an ongoing exchange of individual images from data sets with selected participants. The results of this empirical inquiry help to consider how a durational engagement with such images elicits profound and variously situated meanings beyond the apparent visual content used by algorithms. We adopt the lens of critical pedagogy to untangle the role of data sets in teaching and learning, thus raising two discussion points: First, regarding how the focus on scale ignores the complexity and situatedness of images, and what it would mean for algorithms to embed more reflexive ways of seeing; Second, concerning how scaling down may support a critical literacy around data sets, raising critical consciousness around computer vision. To support the dissemination of this practice and the critical development of algorithms, we have produced a teaching plan and a tool for classroom use.","PeriodicalId":39970,"journal":{"name":"Photographies","volume":"16 1","pages":"235 - 261"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60302608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PhotographiesPub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2023.2194878
Doron Altaratz
{"title":"THE HUMAN TRIPOD: COMPUTATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY, AUTOMATED PROCESSES, AND PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY","authors":"Doron Altaratz","doi":"10.1080/17540763.2023.2194878","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2023.2194878","url":null,"abstract":"How can professional photography continue to exist in an age of machine vision? As this article suggests, computational photography destabilizes the ideology of professional photographic distinctiveness, expertise, agency and creativity. In an era characterized by constant instability due to technological developments, changes to photographer’s professional habitus are expected. While these changes are connected to technical modifications in professional tools, they can deeply challenge the identities of practitioners, their perception of photography’s fluctuating affordances, their own roles in image-production, and even the distinctiveness of the medium itself. Professional photography is thus a powerful signifier of the photographic medium and a key arena for understanding the social meaning of the automation of vision across the entire photographic field. Drawing upon interviews with professional photographers who use Structure from Motion, this article propose a new emerging professional identity adapted to this situation: ‘the computational photographer’. For such a photographer the automation of photographic processes necessitates a shift in the site of identity-construction and expertise, away from image-production itself and towards the sphere of distribution on professionally oriented digital platforms. I argue that the advent of the 'computational photographer' indicates that automation processes and practices of technological embodiment influence the habitus of professional photographers.","PeriodicalId":39970,"journal":{"name":"Photographies","volume":"16 1","pages":"291 - 311"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47802671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}