Assessment of plastics in the National Trust: a case study at Mr Straw's House

The National Trust is a charity that cares for over 300 publically accessible historic buildings and their contents across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There have been few previous studies on preservation of plastics within National Trust collections, which form a significant part of the more modern collections of objects. This paper describes the design of an assessment system which was successfully trialled at Mr Straws House, a National Trust property in Worksop, UK. This system can now be used for future plastic surveys at other National Trust properties. In addition, the survey gave valuable information about the state of the collection, demonstrating that the plastics that are deteriorating are those that are known to be vulnerable, namely cellulose nitrate/acetate, PVC and rubber. Verifying this knowledge of the most vulnerable plastics enables us to recommend to properties across National Trust that these types should be seen as a priority for correct storage and in-depth recording

Digital Surrealism: Visualizing Walt Disney Animation Studios

There are a number of fruitful digital humanities approaches to cinema and media studies, but most of them only pursue traditional forms of scholarship by extracting a single variable from the audiovisual text that is already legible to scholars. As an alternative, cinema and media studies should pursue a mostly-ignored digital surrealism that uses computer-based methods to transform film texts in radical ways not previously possible. This article describes one such method using the z-projection function of the scientific image analysis software ImageJ to sum film frames in order to create new composite images. Working with the fifty-five feature-length films from Walt Disney Animation Studios, I describe how this method allows for a unique understanding of a film corpus not otherwise available to cinema and media studies scholars

Forensic image analysis – CCTV distortion and artefacts

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. As a result of the worldwide deployment of surveillance cameras, authorities have gained a powerful tool that captures footage of activities of people in public areas. Surveillance cameras allow continuous monitoring of the area and allow footage to be obtained for later use, if a criminal or other act of interest occurs. Following this, a forensic practitioner, or expert witness can be required to analyse the footage of the Person of Interest. The examination ultimately aims at evaluating the strength of evidence at source and activity levels. In this paper, both source and activity levels are inferred from the trace, obtained in the form of CCTV footage. The source level alludes to features observed within the anatomy and gait of an individual, whilst the activity level relates to activity undertaken by the individual within the footage. The strength of evidence depends on the value of the information recorded, where the activity level is robust, yet source level requires further development. It is therefore suggested that the camera and the associated distortions should be assessed first and foremost and, where possible, quantified, to determine the level of each type of distortion present within the footage. A review of the ‘forensic image analysis’ review is presented here. It will outline the image distortion types and detail the limitations of differing surveillance camera systems. The aim is to highlight various types of distortion present particularly from surveillance footage, as well as address gaps in current literature in relation to assessment of CCTV distortions in tandem with gait analysis. Future work will consider the anatomical assessment from surveillance footage

Design And Assessment Of Compact Optical Systems Towards Special Effects Imaging

A main challenge in the field of special effects is to create special effects in real time in a way that the user can preview the effect before taking the actual picture or movie sequence. There are many techniques currently used to create computer-simulated special effects, however current techniques in computer graphics do not provide the option for the creation of real-time texture synthesis. Thus, while computer graphics is a powerful tool in the field of special effects, it is neither portable nor does it provide work in real-time capabilities. Real-time special effects may, however, be created optically. Such approach will provide not only real-time image processing at the speed of light but also a preview option allowing the user or the artist to preview the effect on various parts of the object in order to optimize the outcome. The work presented in this dissertation was inspired by the idea of optically created special effects, such as painterly effects, encoded in images captured by photographic or motion picture cameras. As part of the presented work, compact relay optics was assessed, developed, and a working prototype was built. It was concluded that even though compact relay optics can be achieved, further push for compactness and cost-effectiveness was impossible in the paradigm of bulk macro-optics systems. Thus, a paradigm for imaging with multi-aperture micro-optics was proposed and demonstrated for the first time, which constitutes one of the key contributions of this work. This new paradigm was further extended to the most general case of magnifying multi-aperture micro-optical systems. Such paradigm allows an extreme reduction in size of the imaging optics by a factor of about 10 and a reduction in weight by a factor of about 500. Furthermore, an experimental quantification of the feasibility of optically created special effects was completed, and consequently raytracing software was developed, which was later commercialized by SmARTLens(TM). While the art forms created via raytracing were powerful, they did not predict all effects acquired experimentally. Thus, finally, as key contribution of this work, the principles of scalar diffraction theory were applied to optical imaging of extended objects under quasi-monochromatic incoherent illumination in order to provide a path to more accurately model the proposed optical imaging process for special effects obtained in the hardware. The existing theoretical framework was generalized to non-paraxial in- and out-of-focus imaging and results were obtained to verify the generalized framework. In the generalized non-paraxial framework, even the most complex linear systems, without any assumptions for shift invariance, can be modeled and analyzed

Black & White Photography for 35mm: A Guide to Photography and Darkroom Techniques

Combining detailed explanations of all aspects of black-and-white 35mm photography with exercises that clearly illustrate each concept step-by-step results in a comprehensive how-to guide to the camera and darkroom. This manual covers the basics of taking a shot by explaining the camera functions, how the camera meters light, and the proper use of filters. It teaches beginning through advanced techniques for shooting, developing, and printing and offers advice on selecting the right lens, the proper depth of field, and correct exposure. Included are darkroom tips on setup and maintenance and details of the latest technology and equipment.https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/lmu_ebook_collection/1001/thumbnail.jp

The history of fine art photography

ThesisArt is a subjective term as it is subject to personal taste and opinion. It is impossible to definitely derme what art is. In fme art photography there is no distinctive subject matter, there is no one thing that is photographed like with other fields of photography. Art is not guided by any specific rules or techniques. Any subject can be photographed or explored. It is a favourable opinion that fme art is about personal expression, emotion and symbolism. Fine art is more about the way the artist sees his subject than it is ahout the subject itself (Leggat, 1999:1). Photographic art comprises those images that meet the criteria of any visual art. The basic nature of photography is first, its registration and second, the artist's choice and control of the pictorial elements. For photography to be transformed into art, the observable world must be seen artistically (Kaufman, 1989:3). When photography used the conventions of painting, either replicating subject matter or simulating painterly effects, it achieved limited success. The result was found to be either artificial or unacceptable to the medium's unique potential to record facts. Pictorialism was responsible for gaining photographs entry into art museums around the world, despite its drawbacks. It also paved the way for photographs to be included in fme art exhibitions and in determining that photography was noljust a mechanical process but a creative art form (McAdam, 2003: 1). In the earliest stages of the history of photography there already existed a strong conflict with regard to photography being a science or an art (Leggat, 1999: I)

Nostalgia and iPhone Camera Apps: An Ethnographic Visual Approach to iPhoneography

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone and camera on social media. iPhoneography, the photography taken or edited with the iPhone, has set the trend of nostalgic photography on social media during the 2010s; thus, the iPhone, a high-tech camera, produces low-tech-looking images. This dissertation attempts to find out why iPhone photographers (iPhoneographers) take, edit, and share images that mimic photographs taken with analog photographic equipment. I argue that nostalgia allows iPhoneographers to use the iPhone as a creative tool and to belong to a community. Based on the arguments of Vilém Flusser—who suggested that photographers are more interested in the camera and the process of taking pictures than in the photographs produced—this work focuses first on the iPhone camera and the camera apps. (This work also considers the writings of Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, and W. J. T. Mitchell, as they pertain to photography and iPhoneography.) It traces the beginning of the nostalgic photograph style to 2008, when the Apple App Store offered apps that behaved like toy cameras and rendered images similar to those produced by toy and Polaroid cameras. The Hipstamatic app set the trend in 2009, and Instagram made it mainstream. Nostalgia is more a source of inspiration and creativity than a source of melancholy and longing for the past. The iPhoneography community on Facebook tends to form small groups that share and curate specific topics, such as clouds, portraits, flowers, and images produced with Hipstamatic. A small survey of the iPhoneography community shows that the community considers iPhoneography an art

Airbrushing and texture

Ankara : The Department of Graphic Design and Institute of Fine Arts of Bilkent Univ, 1994.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 1994.Includes bibliographical refences.By the expianing the airbrushing technique, the texture in airbrushig is shown as examples. In this thesis, it is explained that this techniques can be used by a freehand or by using different materials to create new textures and effects. Airbrush technique can be used with the richness of texture which can be achieved by softer aparts from static forms method.Canko, AkınM.S