ClearPhoto - augmented photography

The widespread use of mobile devices has made known to the general public new areas that were hitherto confined to specialized devices. In general, the smartphone came to give all users the ability to execute multiple tasks, and among them, take photographs using the integrated cameras. Although these devices are continuously receiving improved cameras, their manufacturers do not take advantage of their full potential, since the operating systems normally offer simple APIs and applications for shooting. Therefore, taking advantage of this environment for mobile devices, we find ourselves in the best scenario to develop applications that help the user obtaining a good result when shooting. In an attempt to provide a set of techniques and tools more applied to the task, this dissertation presents, as a contribution, a set of tools for mobile devices that provides information in real-time on the composition of the scene before capturing an image. Thus, the proposed solution gives support to a user while capturing a scene with a mobile device. The user will be able to receive multiple suggestions on the composition of the scene, which will be based on rules of photography or other useful tools for photographers. The tools include horizon detection and graphical visualization of the color palette presented on the scenario being photographed. These tools were evaluated regarding the mobile device implementation and how users assess their usefulness

REAL TIME ASSISTANCE IN PHOTOGRAPHY USING SOCIAL MEDIA

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Intuition, expertise and judgement in the capture and assessment of photographic images

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to our theoretical and experiential understanding of the exercise of multivariate, short time-slice photographic judgement. This research is grounded in both the ontology and the psychology of nonconscious (intuitive) cognition and its orthogonal interaction with conscious thought at the moment of capture or assessment of a photographic image. My principal mode of empirical investigation uses a cross-sectional, correlational design employing a testing instrument, the Intuitive Mastery Photography Test (the IMP Test) originally developed to support Ryan (2017). The tests were conducted upon a mixed sample of 106 amateur and professional photographers, twenty of whom also participated in an unstructured intraspective interview. The testing and interviews establish: (i) that ten constructs satisfactorily enclose the concept of expertise for this sample of photographers in this domain, (ii) that partitioning on the basis of inter alia gender, photographic qualification and genre produce significant differences in the engagement and conjugation of the ten constructs in the intuitive moment of capture or assessment, and (iii) that ‘style’ or ‘voice’ can be explained as an emergent property derived from the complexities of the exercise of expert, intuitive, photographic judgement. I conclude that, notwithstanding the sample size, there are grounds for strong confidence that the testing is of high external validity as a tool for individual analysis and modest confidence that it is also valid for the partitioned sub-groups

Post-Produced Cultures - Meta-Images, Aesthetics and the Hawzas

The present work explores my practice as a photojournalist researching anthropological issues in the Muslim world. I use the Hawzas, the Muslim Shi’a seminaries, as my case study to invite a visually informed approach to the human sciences, and promote a practical usage of aesthetics. Because of the dramatic disproportion between socio-cultural relevance and under-representation, the Hawzas offer an extremely valuable opportunity to research issues of Orientalism and Orientalist visual archives. By questioning my own fieldwork practice alongside the visual signification of the Hawzas, I reconnect the pre-production to the post-production phase, and encompass within it a shared outlook issues of both the Real and the represented. I posit the photograph within wider multimedia and multi-audience practices as a stand-alone communicative device and part of a montage to assess its communicative features in relation to the verbal as a caption, and to the visual, in montage. Through this, I distinguish a phenomenological framework of analysis to urge a radical rethinking of personal and social agencies, and suggest the notion of communicative hubs for today’s globalised identities. I evince the extent to which the digital is reshaping forms of visual-led and multimedia production, knowledge distribution and media consumption to finally contextualise the photograph as ‘semantics without ontology.’ I conclude by advocating my ideas of the ‘Meta- Image’ and ‘Public Cultures 2.0’ as two integrated formats for visual-led communication, digital media practice, social engagement and public impact as specifically addressing Muslim cultures

Spiritual Flavours: Reflections on using creative practice to explore food and religion in a multi-faith suburb

This practice-related doctoral research comparatively investigates the relationship between food and religious material practices of several faith communities in Ealing, a suburb in West London. These include a Synagogue, a Sri Lankan Hindu Temple, a mosque, a Sikh Gurdwara, an Anglican church, a multicultural Roman Catholic church and an ethnically diverse Pentecostal church. The research is centred around the development of an arts project, Spiritual Flavours, which comprises a photographic series, a twenty-eight-minute film and a recipe photobook. Whilst the photographic series uses a formal approach to explore the spatial arrangements of commensality within religious buildings, the photobook and the film focus on personal narratives, bringing together a diverse range of intimate experiences of food and spirituality across both domestic and worship spaces. The film also produces a rhythmic and multi-sensory experience by creating visual and sonic synchronies and asynchronies across the three main protagonists through the use of the split-screen technique and the creative mixing of sounds of cooking and prayer. With a very interdisciplinary approach, drawing from visual cultures, cultural studies, and social sciences, the thesis analyses the kinds of knowledge that each of these visual elements produce individually and combined. Here, it specifically draws on literatures on material religion, on food, memory and the senses, and on performativity, to explore the centrality of food in everyday religious practices in ways that are inseparable from the material practices involved in the creative process itself. This forms the basis for further analysis of the way the project produces ‘multifaith’ understandings of culinary religious practices as sensory, affective and embodied (spiritual) practices; as well how these intersect with other personal and socio-cultural dimensions, such as experiences of migration, identity, home and community. This research also develops an original exploration of the opportunities and challenges of visual practice as research practice. It contributes to understandings of participatory creative methodologies in how its outputs produce new multi-faith relationships and disseminate research knowledge that is accountable and meaningful to the participants and communities involved, as well as wider audience

The development and use of the zoom lens in American film and television: 1946-1974

This dissertation documents two aspects of the development and use of zoom lenses in American film and television from 1946 to 1974. It contributes a detailed account of the impact of Zoomar lenses on early postwar American television, and of the later role of ‘TV Generation’ creative figures who started their careers in television before becoming feature directors. Chapter 1 introduces the study and defines key terms used throughout. Chapter 2 includes a comprehensive literature review of existing critical and historical approaches to the zoom lens. Chapter 3 outlines methodologies for source selection and analysis. Chapter 4 accounts for the development and technological heritage of the Zoomar lens. Inventive efforts and methods used by its primary inventor, Frank Back, are discussed. Chapter 5 outlines the means by which Back and his business partners marketed the lens. In Chapter 6, the extent to which the lens was used in the American television industry between 1946 and 1956 is demonstrated. Chapter 7 discusses the American market entry of the Pan Cinor zoom lens, and attempts by Zoomar to use patent law to block it. Chapter 8 discusses the way in which zoom lenses were used in television during the later 1950s and early 1960s, with a particular focus on some of the ‘TV Generation’ directors. Chapter 9 discusses developments in zoom lens technology and in industrial attitudes towards the use of such technology. Chapter 10 discusses the use of the zoom by TV Generation directors in their later feature film work. The final chapter compares discussions of Robert Altman’s use of the zoom in the early 1970s with the problematizing example of contemporaneous television style. Significant findings are summarized, and areas for future investigation suggested. Specifically, the dissertation demonstrates that early postwar American television is a rich untapped area for future investigations of the roots of film technology, and that from 1946 to 1974 zoom lens development was more gradual, incremental and complex than previously suggested

Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 4: Learning, Technology, Thinking

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 4 includes papers from Learning, Technology and Thinking tracks of the conference

Seeing America: Women Photographers between the Wars

Seeing America explores the camera work of five women who directed their visions toward influencing social policy and cultural theory. Taken together, they visually articulated the essential ideas occupying the American consciousness in the years between the world wars. Melissa McEuen examines the work of Doris Ulmann, who made portraits of celebrated artists in urban areas and lesser-known craftspeople in rural places; Dorothea Lange, who magnified human dignity in the midst of poverty and unemployment; Marion Post Wolcott, a steadfast believer in collective strength as the antidote to social ills and the best defense against future challenges; Margaret Bourke-White, who applied avant-garde advertising techniques in her exploration of the human condition; and Berenice Abbott, a devoted observer of the continuous motion and chaotic energy that characterized the modern cityscape. Combining feminist biography with analysis of visual texts, McEuen considers the various prisms though which each woman saw and revealed America. Their documentary photographs were the result of personal visions that had been formed by experiences and emotions as well as by careful calculations and technological processes. These photographers captured the astounding variety of occupations, values, and leisure activities that shaped the nation, and their photographs illuminate the intricate workings of American culture in the 1920s and 1930s. Winner of the 1999 Emily Toth Award for the best feminist study of popular culture given by the Women’s Caucus of the Popular Culture Association Melissa McEuen is an assistant professor of history at Transylvania University. Each short biographical study of these artists and their professional habits charts the evolution of socially conscious photography. —Arkansas Review A treasury of information and analysis. . . . A rich resource for anyone interested in the history of photography, women\u27s history, and American history in general. —Bloomsbury Review The quality in this study rests in McEuen’s ability to synthesize individual creativity with a description of the period, and how these women’s photography played a role in so many aspects of it. —Choice A valiant, well-researched effort to bridge the history of visual culture with American social and political history. —Journal of American History Gives credit to the women who had the unique ability to capture the unfailing human spirit in their images. —Kentucky Monthly Profiles five female photographers, their work, their motivations and their reflection of America. —Lexington Herald-Leader The best books always leave their audience wanting more. That is certainly true of this gem of a work. —Library Journal (starred review) Succeeds in conveying to the reader the remarkable intellectual curiosity and wherewithal of these women, as evidenced by the vibrancy and variety of the their work. —Magill Book Reviews McEuen has contributed an impressively-researched, well-written, and engaging volume, rich in contextual details and appealing to specialists and general readers alike. —NWSA Journal Illuminates both the work and the personalities of the artists—as well as the difficulties of being a woman photographer at the time. —Ohioana Quarterly Opens a window on American culture between the world wars. —Publishers Weekly McEuen looks beyond the image, in this case photographs, to understand who fashioned the image and why. —Register of the Kentucky Historical Societyhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_womens_studies/1007/thumbnail.jp