Photography and Belief
Photography and Belief

Author: David Levi Strauss

Publisher: David Zwirner Books

Published: 2020-10-27

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781644230473

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In this exploration of contemporary photography, David Levi Strauss questions the concept that “seeing is believing” Identifying a recent shift in the dominance of photography, David Levi Strauss looks at the power of the medium in the age of Photoshop, smart phones, and the internet, asking important questions about how we look and what we trust. In the first ekphrasis title on photography, Strauss challenges the aura of believability and highlights the potential dangers around this status. He examines how images produced on cameras gradually gained an inordinate power to influence public opinion, prompt action, comfort and assuage, and direct or even create desire. How and why do we believe technical images the way we do? Offering a poignant argument in the era of “fake news,” Strauss draws attention to new changes in the technology of seeing. Some uses of "technical images" are causing the connection between images and belief (between seeing and believing) to fray and pull apart. How is this shifting our relationship to images? Will this crisis in what we can believe come to threaten our very purchase on the real? This book is an inquiry into the history and future of our belief in images.

Faces of the Living Dead
Faces of the Living Dead

Author: Martyn Jolly

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13:

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From the collections of the British Library and other major archives in Britain and America, this includes work from leading spirit photographers from the 1870s to 1930s.

The Perfect Medium
The Perfect Medium

Author: Clément Chéroux

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0300111363

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In the early days of photography, many believed and hoped that the camera would prove more efficient than the human eye in capturing the unseen. Spiritualists and animists of the nineteenth century seized on the new technology as a method of substantiating the existence of supernatural beings and happenings. This fascinating book assembles more than 250 photographic images from the Victorian era to the 1960s, each purporting to document an occult phenomenon: levitations, apparitions, transfigurations, ectoplasms, spectres, ghosts, and auras. Drawn from the archives of European and American occult societies and private and public collections, the photographs in many cases have never before been published. The Perfect Medium studies these rare and remarkable photographs through cultural, historical, and artistic lenses. More than mere curiosities, the images on film are important records of the cultural forces and technical methods that brought about their production. They document in unexpected ways a period when developing photographic technology merged with a popular obsession with the occult to create a new genre of haunting experimental photographs.

The Belief Book
The Belief Book

Author: Chuck Harrison

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2018-12-13

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13: 9781790576180

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A book about "religions and gods and beliefs in general, [which] also [examines] something called The Scientific Method, which is how we learn new things about the world. By the time you're done reading you will know the answers to some of life's biggest questions, but more importantly you will see why your questions, and all questions for that matter, are so important"--Amazon.com.

Photography
Photography

Author: David Bate

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-09-25

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1000211118

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Providing a thorough and comprehensive introduction to the study of photography, this second edition of Photography: The Key Concepts has been expanded and updated to cover more fully contemporary changes to photography. Photography is a part of everyday life; from news and advertisements, to data collection and surveillance, to the shaping of personal and social identity, we are constantly surrounded by the photographic image. Outlining an overview of photographic genres, David Bate explores how these varied practices can be coded and interpreted using key theoretical models. Building upon the genres included in the first edition – documentary, portraiture, landscape, still life, art and global photography – this second edition includes two new chapters on snapshots and the act of looking. The revised and expanded chapters are supported by over three times as many photographs as in the first edition, examining contemporary practices in more detail and equipping students with the analytical skills they need, both in their academic studies and in their own practical work.An indispensable guide to the field, Photography: The Key Concepts is core reading for all courses that consider the place of photography in society, within photographic practice, visual culture, art, media and cultural studies.

Portrait Photography
Portrait Photography

Author: Michael Freeman

Publisher: Lark Books

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 9781579905279

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Hundreds of beautiful color photographs show how to master photography's most popular subject: the art of portraiture. By combining traditional photographic skills with the limitless possibilities offered by digital, this expert guide helps amateurs successfully portray people in the rituals of daily life, frame the figure in the image, utilize high-speed techniques to catch memorable moments, and create a picture essay to document an event. Find out a variety of ways to photograph groups, babies, and children; capture the fleeting expression; and get the right lighting for character and drama. Follow the tips for shooting unobserved on the street and doing reportage; for using wide-angle or medium telephoto techniques; and for dealing respectfully with other cultures. Be the photographer whom everyone wants to record family gatherings, weddings, and other special occasions. And, of course, there's also advice on taking a formal portrait, including how to set up a makeshift studio.

Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm

Author: Rachel F. Stapleton

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2019-08-29

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0773558381

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Iconoclasm – the alteration, destruction, or displacement of icons – is usually considered taboo or profane. But, on occasion, the act of destroying the sacred unintentionally bestows iconic status on the desecrated object. Iconoclasm examines the reciprocity between the building and the breaking of images, paying special attention to the constructive power of destructive acts. Although iconoclasm carries with it inherently religious connotations, this volume examines the shattering of images beyond the spiritual and the sacred. Presenting responses to renowned cultural anthropologist and theorist Michael Taussig, these essays centre on conceptual iconoclasm and explore the sacrality of objects and belief systems from historical, cultural, and disciplinary perspectives. From Milton and Nietzsche to Paul Newman and Banksy, through such diverse media and genres as photography, the popular romance novel, pornography, graffiti, cinema, advertising, and the dictionary, this book questions how icons and iconoclasms are represented, the language used to describe them, and the manner in which objects signify once they are shattered. An interdisciplinary, disconnected, and non-linear consideration of the historical and contemporary relationship between the sacred and the profane, Iconoclasm disrupts entrenched views about the revered or reviled idols present in most aspects of daily life. Contributors include T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko (Toronto), Christopher van Ginhoven Rey (Pomona College), Helen Hester (West London), Emily Hoffman (Arkansas Tech), Natalie B. Pendergast (Yukon College), Beth Saunders (Maryland), Adam Swann (Glasgow), Michael Taussig (Columbia), Angela Toscano (Iowa), Brendon Wocke (Perpignan).

Materialities of Passing
Materialities of Passing

Author: Peter Bjerregaard

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-17

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1317099427

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‘Passing’ is a common euphemism for the death of a person, as he or she is said to ‘pass away’ or ‘pass on’. This open-ended saying has at its heart a notion of transformation from one state to another, which in turn grants the possibility of grasping or approximating the passage of time and the materiality of death and decay. This book begins with the idea that since all material things - whether animals, human beings, objects or buildings - undergo some form of passing, then the specific transformation in these passages and the materiality actively given to it can offer us a grasp of otherwise precarious temporalities. It examines how human beings strive to relate to the temporal dimension of death and decay, by giving new shape and direction to being and by examining its natural transformations. Focusing on the materiality of passing, and thereby the relationship between embodiment, temporality and death, Materialities of Passing offers rich case studies from Europe, Papua New Guinea, South Africa and the Russian Far East for exploring the material, spatial and directional aspects of the very interface between life and death. As such, it will appeal to scholars of anthropology, death studies, archaeology, philosophy and cultural studies.