Imaging the invisible using modified digital still cameras for straightforward and low-cost archaeological near-infrared photography

Analogue near-infrared (NIR) photography has already been used a lot in both scientific and medical photography, in which cases near-infrared (NIR) radiation was mostly captured by InfraRed (IR) sensitive plates or film emulsions. However, its use in archaeology has remained rather restricted, most likely due to some ignorance and/or lack of knowledge about this kind of photography, while the critical imaging process also severely limited its use. This situation could be, however, changed completely, as the image sensors used in digital still cameras (DSCs) are very sensitive to NIR wavelengths, making the quite lengthy and error-prone film-based NIR imaging process obsolete. Moreover, modifying off-the-shelf DSCs even simplifies this digital acquisition of NIR photographs to a very large extent.By starting with a general outline of the ElectroMagnetic (EM) spectrum and the specificities of NIR radiation, the base is laid out to tackle the possibilities and practicalities of archaeological NIR imaging, subsequently comparing the earlier film-based approach with the digital way of NIR shooting, showing how the latter can greatly benefit from modified compact, hybrid and small-format Single Lens Reflex (SLR) DSCs. Besides in-depth information on the technique of digital NIR photography, examples will illustrate its archaeological potential.     

Pics or It Didn't Happen: Reading Photographs in the Reef Tank Community

In 1961, Lee Chin Eng jumpstarted the reef hobby, a hobby dedicated to the modeling of coral reefs in captivity, with an article in Tropical Fish Hobbyist. He illustrated the article with eight photographs; these images were meaningful to the hobbyists viewing them and they conveyed both information about the tank system and also claims about Lee's expertise. This paper examines three genres of photographs—landscapes, active, and passive portraiture—that appeared in Lee's article and how and why they have proliferated in the reef hobbyist community over the last sixty years. By tracing the history of these genres, we can better understand natural knowledge producers rely on photographs to exchange knowledge and cement community identity.     

参与式摄影在西方人文地理学中的应用和启示

参与式摄影在近十年来受到西方人文地理学研究的关注。这种研究方法要求被研究者在给定的主题下主动拍摄照片或视频，以具象化其日常生活和活动路径，从而展现其动态的、身体化的、非表征化的行为过程。这一方法不仅能促使研究者和被研究者之间的有效沟通，还能唤起被研究者的情感和记忆，从而促进调研的开展。本研究通过对西方人文地理学研究中相关文献的梳理，对参与式摄影的主要类型、步骤及其在西方人文地理学研究中的应用范围、优势和局限性等进行了介绍，并梳理了参与式摄影在西方人文地理学研究中的应用价值和意义。在此基础上，本研究指出国内未来研究可应用参与式摄影方法的三个方向：①边缘群体和少数族群的地方感及其对地方意义的建构；②日常生活和微观空间地理研究；③社会现象和生活环境的变化对人们地方认同的影响。     

The (un)promised land: queer identity and South Africa’s post-apartheid urban landscape

Abstract

In this article, I explore the intersection of photography and contemporary urban topographies in the production of queer identity in post-apartheid South Africa. To do so I examine Thebeautifulonesarehere, a contemporary photo-collage portrait series by Kelebogile Ntladi, which attempts to queer representations of South African cityscapes to reveal the entrenched homophobia and the systematic rejection of queer subjects. Ntladi, inspired by their own experiences of counter-normativity and the omnipresent threat of violence they face as a result, took to the streets to walk through their home city of Johannesburg to photograph the urban and cultural landscape; these photographic prints were then used as the building blocks in the assembly and fabrication of imagined spaces in which they and their fellow queer citizens would be able to live without fear of violence, where they could move freely and without repercussion. Using the trope of the flâneur as a starting point, I draw on Walter Benjamin’s paradoxical experience of Paris: his writing of Paris as the ‘capital of the nineteenth century’ and ‘the promised land’ of the flâneur exists in stark juxtaposition with his own complex experience of anxiety, dislocation and impending doom while living in the city while in exile during World War II. Ntladi’s personal experience of post-1994 Johannesburg echoes the paradoxical experience.     

PRODUCING GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE THROUGH VISUAL METHODS

The tradition of using qualitative interviews in the study of everyday life, place and identity in geography, housing studies and related disciplines is a long and sound one. Recently there has been increasing interest in using visual methods as part of qualitative methodological approaches. Through our own empirical work, this article explores one position in visual methodology, which suggests visual methods as a way of in a sense getting closer to the lived life. Drawing inspiration from qualitative methodology and performative perspectives in geography, this article argues that this position overlooks the ways in which the visual – here photography – can also be seen as performed. Based on the authors' experiences with visual methods in fieldwork in housing areas in greater Copenhagen, and using both informants' and researchers' photographic work, the article shows how a performative perspective on photography can be used in qualitative research in geography.     

Difficult heritage and digital media: ‘selfie culture’ and emotional practices at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

ABSTRACT

This article sheds light on the entanglements of difficult heritage and digital media through an ethnographic analysis of digital photography and social media practices at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. After a discussion of the project ‘Yolocaust’, through which an artist publicly shamed the ‘selfie culture’ at the memorial, the article argues that the sweeping condemnation of digital self-representations in the context of Holocaust remembrance remains simplistic. Instead, many visitors explore and enact potential emotional relationships to the pasts that sites of difficult heritage represent through digital self-representations. This observation raises critical questions about the role of digital media in current transformations of touristic memory cultures.     

‘That street is taking us to home’: young children’s photographs of public spaces

ABSTRACT

Children’s identities constitute and are constituted by the everyday spaces they inhabit. Though there are innumerable accounts of what adults think public spaces like subways and city streets mean to children, fewer recorded accounts exist from young children themselves (Faulkner and Zolkos 2016, “Introduction.” In Critical Childhood Studies and the Practice of Interdisciplinarity, ix–xvii. Lexington: Lanham.). In this work I explored 2- – 5-year-old children’s conceptions of public space through the photographs they took and the narratives they told in and around those images. I focused on how children imaged their spaces, how their narrative fragments added layers of story to the images’ contents, and how their photographic performances acted as ‘visual voice’ (Burke 2005, “‘Play in Focus’: Children Researching Their Own Spaces and Places for Play.” Children Youth and Environments 15 (1): 27–53.), highlighting for us how they see themselves and their positions within the larger urban environment. The young children’s photographs depicted their growing autonomy and mobility within an urban context, attunements to non-human forms of the city, and knowledge of what it means to live in their communities.     

Improving the learning processes of Physical Geography through the use of landscape photographs in class

The use of alternative teaching methods to lectures is one of the keys to develop a more participatory and effective education. In the teaching of Geography, greater interaction of students with elements of the landscape through the active use of photography could be one of the ways to achieve this efficiency. This article describes an experiment conducted in 2016 with students of the subject Physical Geography of the Iberian Peninsula. Two different teaching methodologies were applied to two groups of students. The first one was based on dividing the time of each class between participatory comments of landscape photographs and imparting theoretical knowledge through lectures. The second methodology consisted only of lectures, following a more traditional approach. Additionally, some students from the first group actively participated by uploading and tagging their own field pictures to a photographic repository of the University of Seville. The effectiveness of the different activities in each group was assessed through four tests, performed monthly. The results indicate that the use of landscape photographs as a participative teaching resource allows a more efficient learning of theoretical concepts. Therefore, the proposed methodology should be considered by those interested in improving the quality and effectiveness of their teaching of Geography.