Kendall Walton argued that photographs are transparent, that we literally see things through them. This claim provoked many objections, and one line of argument has focused on the fact that when we see objects in ordinary situations we see their approximate location with respect to us, whereas in typical photographs we do not. The author argues, however, that this egocentric spatial information is not what distinguishes literal seeing from typical photograph seeing. Instead of it, the author proposes two conditions for (...) normal, literal seeing. One is that the seeing be real-time, and the other is that the image be “empty”. Some photographic images meet these conditions. (shrink)

Taking the Face of Sydney – which is a digital composite image – as its point of departure this article begins an investigation into the relation between August Sander’s Weimar facial typologies and the digital Face of Sydney. This leads on to a reflection on the nature of the photographic image in relation to knowledge, technology and time. The conclusion proposed is that the photographic image has to be understood as an entity that is quite (...) distinct from the forms of technicity that allow it to appear. Indeed, in following Roland Barthes, I argue that the photographic image, like the image in general, is uncoded and thus unnamed. The question raised in light of this is: what is the nature of the human in the context of such an approach to the image? (shrink)

A photographic image is said to provide evidence of a photographed scene because it is a causal imprint of reflected light, an indexical trace of real objects and events. Though widely established in the history, theory, and philosophy of photography, this traditional imprinting model must be rejected because it relies on a “single-stage” misconception of the photographic process: the idea that a photographic image comes into existence at the time of exposure. In its place, a (...) “multistage” account properly articulates different production stages, such as registering and rendering, that are relevant to understanding the relation between a photographic image and the photographed scene. By denying that any photographic image is a causal imprint, the multistage approach proposes a more demanding evaluation of photographic evidence. This has implications for documentary film and photojournalism, along with specialized applications such as forensics, surveillance, and face-recognition technology. (shrink)

Many contemporary imaging systems share a striking quality: their output need not be limited to images. Instead the raw data such systems collect and generate can just as easily appear as acoustic signals or as text. Furthermore, of those images an unexpected proportion bears the familiar form of the photograph. These two phenomena, I argue, stem from an unconditioned bias towards images, on our behalf, and from the cognitive accessibility of photographic images in particular. This should be seen as (...) a unique epistemic advantage. Arguably, this advantage has not diminished much in the course of the last decades. This is especially surprising given the wide anxiety about the ‘end’ of photography and what will, or has, come after it. Confusingly, this anxiety has given rise to the term analogue photography, which is, I argue, somewhat misguided. Accordingly I propose revised definitions for the terms ‘analogue’ and ‘digital’ in respect to photography. These facilitate an alternative understanding of what photographic images are. (shrink)

ArgumentThis article explores the entangled histories of three imaging techniques in early nineteenth-century British physical science, techniques in which a dynamic event (such as a sound vibration or an electric spark) was made to leave behind a fixed trace on a sensitive surface. Three categories of “sensitive surface” are examined in turn: first, a metal plate covered in fine dust; second, the retina of the human eye; and finally, a surface covered with a light-sensitive chemical emulsion (a photographic plate). (...) For physicists Michael Faraday and Charles Wheatstone, and photographic pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot, transient phenomena could be studied through careful observation and manipulation of the patterns wrought on these different surfaces, and through an understanding of how the imaging process unfolded through time. This exposes the often-ignored materiality and temporality of epistemic practices around nineteenth-century scientific images said to be “drawn by nature.”. (shrink)

What is the role of intention in the identification of encoding that arises for images and other non-lexical objects of semiosis? This proposal of the “intentional function” resolves the syntagmatic problems posed by visual imagery: it identifies the viewer’s treatment of what they encounter as if it is encoded based on formal non-signifying cues visible in the image and learned through past experience. This decision about the organization and structure of the work becomes apparent from the consideration of a (...) photographic “selfie” made by a monkey in the rainforest. (shrink)

"Charles "Teenie" Harris photographed the events and daily life of African Americans for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation's most influential Black newspapers. From the 1930s to 1970s, Harris created a richly detailed record of public personalities, historic events, and the lives of average people. In 2001, Carnegie Museum of Art purchased Harris's archive of nearly 80,000 photographic negatives, few of which are titled and dated; the archive is considered one of the most important documentations of 20th?century African (...) American life. The book will serve as the definitive publication on the life and work of Teenie Harris, consisting of three significant essays: Cheryl Finley, assistant professor in the history of art at Cornell University, offers the first thorough analysis of Harris as an artist, situating him within the history of 20th?century African American art as well as American documentary and vernacular photography; Larry Glasco, associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, draws on new research to present a detailed biography of the photographer; and Joe Trotter, professor of history and social justice at Carnegie Mellon University, explores the social and historical context of Harris's photographs. The book will also include a foreword by Deborah Willis, professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. In addition to comparative illustrations within the essays, the book includes 100 plates of Harris's signature work and a complete bibliography and chronology"--. (shrink)

This paper develops a political ontology of relationality that can account for the dramatic impact that photographs of the plight of others can have on the course of the political. The aim...

Within the loose group of studies that are sometimes labelled Heideggerian cinema – studies in which scholars consider film in conjunction with Heidegger's philosophy – little attention has been paid to Heidegger's actual view of cinema. This omission is not only odd but it is also problematic. In the off-hand comments Heidegger directs towards film throughout his collected works he criticises the medium for its covering over of Being, a fact that makes engaging with film through Heidegger's thinking a questionable (...) project. The present article aims to address this omission and to provide a conception of Heideggerian cinema that does not ignore, but answers, Heidegger's criticism. It argues that it is not the technological nature of cinema that is the source of Heidegger's hostility towards the medium but his conception of the film-photographic image as a transparent copy of the world. It is on this basis that cinema is denied the ca... (shrink)

How can the visual and textual data about an image – the image of a work of art – on recto and verso of a picture be interpreted? An analogical-art-documentary photograph represents a palimpsest to be considered layer by layer. The examples discussed in this article, which refer to both Aby Warburg himself and the first nucleus of the Warburg Institute Photographic Collection, contribute to effectively outline elements of the debate around the question of the photographic (...) reproduction of the work of art as well as of the position of photography in relation to the perception of the work of art. (shrink)

Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, the civil rights advocate and the great rhetorician, has been the focus of much academic research. Only more recently is Douglass work on aesthetics beginning to receive its due, and even then its philosophical scope is rarely appreciated. Douglass’ aesthetic interest was notably not so much in art itself, but in understanding aesthetic presentation as an epistemological and psychological aspect of the human condition and thereby as a social and political tool. He was fascinated by the (...) power of images, and took particular interest in the emerging technologies of photography. He often returned to the themes of art, pictures and aesthetic perception in his speeches. He saw himself, also after the end of slavery, as first and foremost a human rights advocate, and he suggests that his work and thoughts as a public intellectual always in some way related to this end. In this regard, his interest in the power of photographic images to impact the human soul was a lifelong concern. His reflections accordingly center on the psychological and political potentials of images and the relationship between art, culture, and human dignity. In this chapter we discuss Douglass views and practical use of photography and other forms of imagery, and tease out his view about their transformational potential particularly in respect to combating racist attitudes. We propose that his views and actions suggest that he intuitively if not explicitly anticipated many later philosophical, pragmatist and ecological insights regarding the generative habits of mind and affordance perception : I.e. that we perceive the world through our values and habitual ways of engaging with it and thus that our perception is active and creative, not passive and objective. Our understanding of the world is simultaneously shaped by and shaping our perceptions. Douglass saw that in a racist and bigoted society this means that change through facts and rational arguments will be hard. A distorted lens distorts - and accordingly re-produces and perceives its own distortion. His interest in aesthetics is intimately connected to this conundrum of knowledge and change, perception and action. To some extent precisely due to his understanding of how stereotypical categories and dominant relations work on our minds, he sees a radical transformational potential in certain art and imagery. We see in his work a profound understanding of the value-laden and action-oriented nature of perception and what we today call the perception of affordances (that is, what our environment permits/invites us to do). Douglass is particularly interested in the social environment and the social affordances of how we perceive other humans, and he thinks that photographs can impact on the human intellect in a transformative manner. In terms of the very process of aesthetic perception his views interestingly cohere and supplement a recent theory about the conditions and consequences of being an aesthetic beholder. The main idea being that artworks typically invite an asymmetric engagement where one can behold them without being the object of reciprocal attention. This might allow for a kind of vulnerability and openness that holds transformational potentials not typically available in more strategic and goal-directed modes of perception. As mentioned, Douglass main interest is in social change and specifically in combating racist social structures and negative stereotypes of black people. He is fascinated by the potential of photography in particular as a means of correcting fallacious stereotypes, as it allows a more direct and less distorted image of the individuality and multidimensionality of black people. We end with a discussion of how, given this interpretation of aesthetic perception, we can understand the specific imagery used by Douglass himself. How he tried to use aesthetic modes to subvert and change the racist habitus in the individual and collective mind of his society. We suggest that Frederick Douglass, the human rights activist, had a sophisticated philosophy of aesthetics, mind, epistemology and particularly of the transformative and political power of images. His works in many ways anticipate and sometimes go beyond later scholars in these and other fields such as psychology & critical theory. Overall, we propose that our world could benefit from revisiting Douglass’ art and thought. (shrink)

Within the context of the contemporary heterogeneity of photographic practices, the present text describes some of the possibilities of understanding the temporality of photographs, giving an account of some important theoretical references. Bearing this in mind, describing photographs as sparks of reality is a way of expanding the Benjaminian proposal and avoiding the strict logics of causality. The strength of photography unfolds the technologically rooted paradox of photographs, whose contemporary relevance can be analysed in the intersection between aesthetics, history (...) and politics. The film 48, by the Portuguese filmmaker Susana Sousa Dias, explores this intersection by using and showing the cracks of the political prisoners’ mug shots. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the relationship that exists between two distinct and seemingly incompatible bodies of scholarship within the field of contemporary philosophy of technology. The first, as argued by postmodern pragmatist Barry Allen, posits that our tools and what we make with them are epistemically important; disputing the idea that knowledge is strictly sentential or propositional, he claims instead that knowledge is the product of a performance that is both superlative and artefactual, rendering technology importantly world-constituting. The second, as argued (...) by Heidegger and his inheritors, is that technology is ontologically problematic; rather than technology being evidence of performative knowledge, it is instead existentially threatening by virtue of the fact that it changes the tenor of our relationship with the world-as-given. Despite the fact that these claims seem prima facie incompatible, I argue that they may be successfully reconciled by introducing a third body of scholarship: the philosophy of photography. For it is the case, I argue, that although we, qua human beings, occupy lifeworlds that are necessarily constituted by technology, technology also induces a kind of phenomenological scepticism: a concern that mediated action precludes us from the possibility of authentic experience. Arguing in favour of the sentiment that photographs serve as a kind of phenomenal anchor—a kind of machine for living—I claim that photographic images provide a panacea to this existential concern: despite being epistemically problematic, it is this selfsame epistemic “specialness” of photographs that forces us to phenomenologically recommit, if only temporarily, to the world in a serious way. Consequently, it is my belief that an analysis of our artefacts and the way they function is fundamentally incomplete without an analysis of the epistemic and ontological problems introduced of the photographic image; as I will demonstrate, the photographic image casts an extremely long shadow over the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

The “photo-text,” as he defines it, is concerned as much with the oral as it is with visual and written culture.

In artificial-intelligence (AI) and computer-vision research, photographic images are typically referred to as natural images. This means that images used or produced in this context are conceptualized within a binary as either natural or synthetic. Recent advances in creative AI technology, particularly generative adversarial networks and diffusion models, have afforded the ability to create photographic-seeming images, that is, synthetic images that appear natural, based on learnings from vast databases of digital photographs. Contemporary discussions of these images have thus (...) far revolved around the political and social implications of producing convincing fake photographs. However, these images are of theoretical interest for the fields of art history and visual studies for additional reasons. AI-generated photographic images resonate with many of the classic themes in photography: nature and the real, the unconscious and the uncanny, and discourses of power. This article therefore seeks to answer the question: Can photorealistic AI-generated images be defined as photographs? I argue that AI-generated photographs do indeed belong within in the wider discourse of photography, given their form and interpretation. (shrink)

In a recent article, Dawn Wilson (2021) has argued against single-stage accounts of photography by arguing against the latent photographic images upon which those accounts depend. Concomitantly, she argues that the only viable account of photography is multi-stage. Unlike single-stage accounts, multi-stage accounts do not postulate the existence of photographic images of any kind prior to development. Rather, according to multi-stage accounts, photographs are produced from “photographic registers.” In this Discussion Piece, I defend single-stage accounts by arguing (...) that Wilson’s rejection of latent photographic images is premised on an implausible view of what a latent photographic image is. Given a reasonable interpretation, the latent images described in single-stage accounts just are the photographic registers described in multi-stage accounts. (shrink)

Images in Spite of All reveals that these rare photos of Auschwitz, taken clandestinely by one of the Jewish prisoners forced to help carry out the atrocities there, were made as a potent act of resistance.

Photography has often been scrutinized regarding its relationship to reality or historical truth. This includes not only the indexicality of photography, but also the question of how structures and processes that comprise history and historical events can be depicted. In this context, the Holocaust provides a particular challenge to photography. As has been discussed in numerous publications, this historic event marks the “limits of representation.” Nevertheless there are many photographs “showing” the Holocaust that have been produced in different contexts that (...) bespeak the photographers’ gaze and the circumstances of the photographs’ production. Some of the pictures have become very well known due to their frequent reproduction, even though they often do not show the annihilation itself, but situations different from that; their interpretation as Holocaust pictures results rather from a metonymic deferral. When these pictures are frequently reproduced they are transformed into symbolic images, that is, images that can be removed from their specific context, and in this way they come to signify abstract concepts such as “evil.” Despite being removed from their specific context these images can, as this essay argues, refer to historical truth. First, I explore the arguments of some key theorists of photography to investigate the relationship between photography and reality in general, looking at their different concepts of reality, history, and historical truth, as well as the question of the meaning of images. Second, I describe the individual circumstances in which some famous Holocaust pictures were taken in order to analyze, by means of three examples, the question what makes these specific pictures so particularly suitable to becoming symbolic images and why they may—despite their abstract meaning—be able to depict historical truth. (shrink)

The thylacine was a shy and elusive nonhuman animal who survived in small numbers on the island of Tasmania, Australia, when European settlers arrived in 1803. After a deliberate campaign of eradication, the species disappeared 130 years later. Visual and verbal constructions in the nineteenth century labeled the thylacine a ferocious predator, but photographs of individuals in British and American zoos that were used to illustrate early twentieth-century zoological works presented a very different impression of the animal. The publication of (...) these photographs, however, had little effect on the relentless progress of extermination. This essay focuses on the relationship between photographs of thylacines and the process of extinction, between images and words, and between pictures of dead animals and live ones. The procedures, claims, and limitations of photography are crucial to the messages generated by these images and to the role they played in the representation of the species. This essay explains why the medium of photography and pleas for preservation could not save the thylacine. (shrink)

Of the most recent turn to literary practices in contemporary art, this article studies one facet: that which relates to the lyric tradition. It hopes to make a case for ‘lyric images’, drawing on the works by artists Tacita Dean, Day for Night (2009), and Roni Horn, Still Water [...] (1999). Read around poems by Emily Dickinson, John Fuller and Margaret Atwood, how these artworks utilize photography’s natural capacity to mirror both the recursive syntactic structure and the blending of instantaneity (...) with immortality common to the lyric poem is explored. Particularly, the article considers notions of cyclical seriality – as composed of singular moments, yet tending towards the infinite – both formally and referentially. Whether these qualities provoke an imaginative and/or emotive looking that contrasts with our response to previous assumptions of the written form in conceptual art practices (e.g. Art and Language) is also reflected upon, in order to contemplate why this particular hybridising may be current in photographic practice. (shrink)

A gathering of more than 120 beautiful color photographs from both professional and amateur photographers captures the timeless splendor of the Ozark region and includes an informative introduction that reviews the history and unique topography of the area. UP.

"Previously unpublished images from glass-plate negatives taken by Walter Schneider capture the years of transition from agrarian to industrial society in America and beyond.

We are told by philosophers that photographs are a distinct category of image because the photographic process is mind-independent. Furthermore, that the experience of viewing a photograph has a special status, justified by a viewer’s knowledge that the photographic process is mind-independent. Versions of these ideas are central to discussions of photography in both the philosophy of art and epistemology and have far-reaching implications for science, forensics and documentary journalism. Mind-independence (sometimes ‘belief independence’) is a term employed (...) to highlight what is important in the idea that photographs can be produced naturally, mechanically, accidentally or automatically. Insofar as the process is physical, natural, mechanical or causal it can occur without human agency or intervention, entirely in the absence of intentional states. Presented innocuously, the idea is that although photographs are dependent on natural or mechanical processes, they can be produced independently of human agency – particularly human beliefs. Presented in a stronger form, the claim is that even if human agency is heavily involved in the production process, the definitive features that make the photograph a photograph and determine its salient properties are nonetheless independent of human minds. In epistemic debates, mind-independence is viewed as essential for explaining why photographs occupy a distinct category among images and justifying a variety of claims about their privileged epistemic and affective status in science, forensics, popular culture and journalism. But, in the philosophy of art, claims about mind-. (shrink)

Create family portraits to cherish for a lifetime Family photographs are a staple of both amateur and professionalphotography. While always in demand, they also pose a unique set ofchallenges. In this book, Canon Explorer of Light Michele Celentanoguides beginning- to intermediate-level photographers around thecommon pitfalls and helps them learn how to get top-quality shotsevery time. From getting families organized and directing theposing to managing large groups and impatient kids, this bookreveals the secrets and helps you capture the shot without relyingon (...) post-production to achieve perfection. Whether you're a professional seeking to advance your knowledgeor the family's designated picture-taker, you'll benefit from theseprofessional tips. You'll learn camera techniques that can takepounds and years off your subjects and create images that stand thetest of time. Family pictures are a photographic staple with their own set ofchallenges; this book offers tried-and-true advice for bothhobbyists and professionals Veteran photographer and Canon Explorer of Light MicheleCelentano guides you through getting families prepared for a photosession, directing the poses, handling challenging personalities,and creating memorable settings Helps you capture the perfect shot in the camera withoutrelying on post-production to make it right Reveals secrets that can help your subjects shed pounds andyears Packed with advice to help you keep your photos from showing upon awkwardfamilyphotos.com Photographing Families: Tips for Capturing TimelessImages is loaded with insider tips to help you make familyportraits the treasure they should be. (shrink)

This pathbreaking collection of thirteen original essays examines the moral rights of the subjects of documentary film, photography, and television.

ETH-Bibliothek, the main library at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich's, is holding in its Image Archive vast collections of photographs. Among them is the complete, and so far only little examined, collection of ETH Zurich's own Photographic Institute throughout its existence as an independent service and research unit between 1886 and 1979. The new, third volume in the series Pictorial Worlds. Photographs from the Image Archive, ETH-Bibliothek documents both main aspects of scientific photography: servicing research (...) in many disciplines and being subject of basic research itself. A rich selection of images is presented, ranging from astronomical and micro photography to laboratory situations and carefully illuminated experimental installations. The introductory essay investigates the interplay between photography and the world of science and tells the story and changing role over the decades of ETH Zurich's Photographic Institute. (shrink)

This stunning paperback volume showcases the winners and best entries for the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition and accompanies a major exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in May 2011 and touring the UK and USA thereafter. ‘The contemporary camera maybe a technological marvel but it can’t take photographs, only the photographer can do that. To succeed it involves making an incredible complex of choices and only one chance in the entire history of time to make them (...) as close to perfect as possible. A carefree snap - easy, a composed and considered picture, well, that requires a synergy of skills and perhaps a dash of genius. So that's why this album is such a treat to revel in, its a feast of the worlds best gardens, gardeners, the plants and animals growing and living in them in the very best photographic forms. The images will 'wow' you, make you wish you had been there, wish it was your garden in the picture or wish you had squeezed the button. It’s a testament to a huge array of skills and a catalogue of remarkable beauty’. Chris Packham – BBC Presenter and photographer. (shrink)

I consider how photographic image manipulation and deception influence both interpretation and evaluation of photographs. First I distinguish between image manipulation and deception by clarifying that image manipulation does not necessarily lead to deception in terms of forming false beliefs. I also argue that image manipulation is not the only way of using photographs deceptively, and I provide examples for photographic deception that do not rely on image manipulation. Then I examine what role (...) the readability of photographic properties plays in their interpretation. I introduce the concept of photographic illocutionary acts to account for the interpretation of photographic images, and I argue that the default interpretation of photographs is always based on our knowledge of the specific ontological and epistemic status of photographs in general, and which distinguishes them from non-photographic images. I conclude that our knowledge about the ease and frequency of analogue or digital image manipulation does not alter our default interpretation with which we approach photographs. (shrink)

Photography is valued as a medium for recording and visually reproducing features of the world. I seek to challenge the view that photography is fundamentally a recording process and that every photograph is a record—a view that I claim is based on a ‘single-stage’ misconception of the process. I propose an alternative, ‘multi-stage’ account in which I argue that causal registration of light is not equivalent to recording and reproducing an image. Intervention or non-intervention by photographers is more sophisticated (...) than the traditional view allows. Using the multi-stage account, I describe four models for producing photographic images and pictures. (shrink)

Photographs and optical images, whatever their contents, are imprints of the electromagnetic waves in the (human) visible range of wavelengths, we refer to as light. Furthermore, they are designed to portray different parts of the visible light in terms of different colours, in analogy with the human eyes, however imperfectly. The world outside our eyes and cameras, however, is permeated by electromagnetic waves with much wider spectrum of wavelengths than those in the visible range. Importantly also, colour is a construct (...) of our eye‐brains: the Universe itself has no colour, independently of us. I ask how does the knowledge of these facts change the way we perceive the colour in optical images and photographs, whatever their relationship to the world in a representational sense may be? By employing three images, with very different origins and vistas ‐ one a direct photograph, the other two synthetically constructed images using real cosmological observations ‐ I demonstrate the extent to which colour in such images can hide the underlying phenomena of which they claim to visually speak, both due to its nature as a coarse-grained visual index, and by being restricted to the visible range. The aim is not to belittle the important role that our (restricted) vision together with our perception of colour have played in the evolution of our species, and still play in the way we relate to the world informationally, aesthetically and emotionally. But rather to show that recognizing the limitations of our vision and complementing it with the knowledge of the phenomena underlying optical images and photographs can allow us to perceive them anew and provide additional tools (both conceptual and visual) to imagine and envision such images outside the bounds of the visible range and colour. (shrink)

The text analyses the new images produced by artificial neural networks such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) from the perspective of photography and, more specifically, cameraless photography. The images produced by GANs are located within the wider framework of the impact of machine learning technologies on contemporary visual culture and contemporary artistic practices. In the final section, the article focuses on the work of two artists who have explicity tackled the relations between GAN-generated images and the traditions of photography and (...) cameraless photography, with their multiple intertwinings of human and non-human agencies: Mario Klingemann and Grégory Chatonsky. (shrink)