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194 Photography Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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• Photograph Description: Nature The photograph reflects a marvelous landscape combining the elements of human interference in the form of buildings; it is necessary to underline the fact that the picture is to be referred to as representational […]
• Personal Interest in Photography Most of Cotton’s photographs were devoted to the exploration of the serenity and beauty in the natural world, as can be seen in the photographs below. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Is Photography an Art and Why? In brief, photography is an art since it uses a variety of human actions to create aural, visual, or performative artifacts that show the author’s creativity or technical proficiency and are intended to be admired […]
• Pathos, Ethos, and Logos in Photography The audience’s personal experiences affects its interpretation of what the picture depicts, it might be close to the communication the photographer had wished to convey or a totally different perspective.
• Eastman Kodak and Photographic Film Industry Major Changes This kind of study enables the marketer to evaluate the performance of the company in the market. Therefore, the application of the model is inevitable in case the market is to understand the performance of […]
• Photography: Art Creation & Reflection The thematic connection between the two pieces is based on the illusionary vision of the simple scenes and experimental approach to the art of photography.
• Sports Photography and Its Evolution The death of Niepce was announced in 1833, but the experiment was still been performed by Daguerre and he succeeded in the development of the daguerreotype finally in 1837.
• Photography as a Mass Medium To demonstrate this fact, the study explores the works of Sontag in her article titled, On Photography, and shows how digital photography changes her analysis about the “photographic way of seeing” life.
• Invention of Photography and Its Social Impact Although photography was invented in its full form only in 1835, an understanding of the social impact that was a result of the invention of photography is rightly portrayed by Azoulay in his article “The […]
• Publishing Controversial Photographs: To Be or Not To Be? Harte took some pictures of the rescue operation, including an image capturing the moment when the rescuers found the body of a drowned boy and showed it to the family.
• Steve McCurry’s Photographs This approach has revealed the impacts of war on the lives of many people across the globe. McCurry had the opportunity to capture the portrait of a monk in Tibet.
• Photography as a Career It is of essence to note that a number of variations exist in the field of photography, for example, self-employment and commercial photographing are just some of the ways one can successfully earn a living […]
• The Impact of Nineteenth Century Photography on Visual Representation and the Development of Visual Culture The essay concludes with a showcasing of a number of nineteenth century photographs that illustrate the wide range of uses, particularly in the realm of portraiture, that photographers of the nineteenth century employed the photographic […]
• Note-Taking and Crime Scene Photography Concerning the effectiveness of notes, generally, they should contain a high level of detail, and straightforwardness and cover all areas of the crime scene.
• Photography in the E-Business: Marketing Strategy Business owners or those in the photography business are now thinking of possible and probably the best way to reach a wider market in the most fashionable and quickest way.
• Impacts of Photography on Advertising So as to discuss this topic, this paper shall: trace the development of photography on advertising; discuss the positive impacts of photography on advertising; and discuss the negative impacts of photography on advertising.
• Timothy Hogan’s Photography Taking into consideration the infinite backing from the greatest producers, retouchers, and workshops in the professional photography niche, it is quite reasonable that Hogan and his team managed to furnace the lifelong contacts that provide […]
• Photography: An Artist Statement In the first image, I arranged the details in the composition to guide the observer through the place I captured by the camera. With the help of the play of the light and shadow, I […]
• Reflection of Photographic Arts The knowledge influences the choice of image and the position of the subject in the photograph. The knowledge of the fundamentals of photographic arts creates a world of possibilities.
• The Visual Argument in the Photograph The photograph and the remark appeal to pathos, striving to first show the emotions of the child in the picture and then accentuating how the words shown through the hand around the boy’s neck can […]
• Photographs Depicting Sufferings of Real People Recording reality may run counter to the goals and ideals of the person making the recording. The dilemma of reaction to shocking photographs is often limited by the viewer’s psychological predisposition and internal values.
• The Development of Lithography and Photography in the Nineteenth Century For this reason, when the reproduction techniques of lithography and photography came up, most of the artists at the time viewed this as a gold mine. As to whether lithography and photography resulted in a […]
• Dharker’s Postcards From God Book and Carter’s Family Photograph Human poverty might have many colors, and the worth of the chosen non-literary work is in the possibility of conveying the struggle in the face of inevitability.
• Photography Comparison and Contrast The focus on the naked parts of the body, like dirty and scratched hands, necks, and faces, allows for learning about the terror and horror of that period. In my photo, the style differs due […]
• An Analysis of a Photograph By Mike Wells This spread of technology-enabled many people to document the environment around them and allowed millions of people to relate to stories of others told through photographs.”A Starving Boy and a Missionary” is one of the […]
• “Film und Foto” Exhibition and Surrealism in Photography Surrealism is considered to be a cultural movement of the early twentieth century and is commonly reflected in the works of art and writings.
• Gordon Parks, an American Photographer After the death of his mother in 1926, Parks was forced to move to Minneapolis, where he made a living by affiliating himself with a number of odd jobs, such as the job of a […]
• Photographer Diane Arbus’ Creativity Analysis Therefore, Arbus showed consistency with the portrayed ugliness of the subjects in the photographs. This enabled Arbus to capture moments that genuinely depicted the feelings of the people in their environment.
• Privacy and Photography in Public Places According to the protectors of privacy, it is inappropriate to take photographs and circulate them without the consent of the individuals.
• Concept of Documentary Photography The purpose of composition in this case is to bring out a distinction between the different elements of a work that is being portrayed in such a manner that the elements of the work that […]
• The Connection of History and Photography Overall, photography falls under the visual sources of chronological data that historians can use to understand and write about recorded events.
• Photography: Critical Analysis The vertical, restive position of the pencil in each of the slides is indicative of a resort to have finished a particular task, presumably that of writing on the foolscap, with the pencil resting in […]
• Photography Exhibition: Examples of the Works This is an outstanding piece of art which made me, for instance, think of our world and humanity: first of all I thought about the perfection of the both, and then I passed to contemplations […]
• Visual Art and Photography Ice Sculpting is truly an art of its own, and even though this style of art is not permanent, unless a person were to place the item into the freezer, this would still be categorized […]
• Melancholy Objects in Photography The purpose of this paper is to develop a critical evaluation of Sontag’s claim of melancholy and Photography, with reference to a photograph taken for a tombstone in a cemetery. In fact, the grave looks […]
• Nikki S. Lee and Photography Considered to be one of a kind, the unique nature of this exhibition placed her in the limelight. In ‘The Seniors Project’, Lee managed to transform herself to fit the image of an old woman […]
• The History of War Photography The purpose of this report is to identify basic trends in the development of war photography and determine the conceptual, stylistic, and technical changes observed in the course of its formation.
• The “We Are All Equal” Photography by Haley Bell In spite of the fact that the photograph is rather straightforward in its message, it is important to focus on this image of a young white woman’s hand with words saying that we are all […]
• Lighting in Painting, Film, and Photography Due to the lack of detail and the unobstructed silhouette lighting, the viewer can witness the anguish of the photography’s subject. Finally, “The Entombment of Christ” is a famous example of chiaroscuro lighting in art.
• The “Close Enough” Exhibition of Photographs Each of the authors presents their vision of connections and relations in global moments, communities, and individual subjects.”Close Enough” deserves a lot of attention in the context of its importance and significance to the world […]
• The Photograph “Melissa Shook in a Lonely Home” by Elizabeth Hammer Munemura The presentation of the idea of malnourished flowers in the room depicts the state of homelessness in the series. The photograph was taken behind the scenes to familiarize the actors and actresses involved in the […]
• Matthew Brandt’s Approach to Photography The artist labors over the production of his images, turning the creation of his work into grueling physical labor by utilizing long-forgotten techniques acquired from the earliest photographers in the tradition of photography, making his […]
• Walter Benjamin’s Article: The Invention of Photography In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Walter Benjamin discusses how the invention of photography and other mechanical reproduction forms has changed how people perceive works of art.
• Canadian Regional Geography in Photographs Because of the combination of two types of climate and the terrain, there is a wide difference of ecosystems. The second image is likely Atlantic Canada, as there are fishermen on it, while the most […]
• Photography as Quick-Paced Creative Medium Photography is interesting since it helps keeps memories alive and prosperous because it freezes a scene that lasts forever. In capturing moments of importance and beauty, photography helps one revisit memories in a way otherwise […]
• The Background of Photography and the History of Racial Strife Overall, Ardizonne argues that Day’s work was destructive to the political discourse, based on an assessment of the pictures and the content of the anthropological section.
• The Ellen Terry Photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron The value of the artwork is that it reminds the world that people are all the same. An interesting fact about the artwork is that the picture was taken during the honeymoon of the actress.
• The Search for Truth: Early Photography, Realism, and Impressionism European colonialism led to the popularity of ethnography and the emergence of Orientalism the Western representation of the Middle East visually or literary.
• Photography of Global Disasters: Violence or Not? There is a moral dilemma in people’s urge to respond to suffering photographs of others by either just looking at the pictures or doing something to stop the disaster.
• Special Features of the Photography by Luc Delahaye and Ansel Adams The above photograph is one of the works by Ansel Adams, who is recognized as a pioneer in the evolutionary field of expertise.
• Jeff Wall, a Contemporary Photographer and His Works Most of the photographer’s works are staged, depicting everyday scenes related to the problems of representation and the history of art.
• Significance of the Photographs Created by T. Simon and J. Riis In turn, Riis presents a unique perspective on the immorality of the Victorian neighborhoods serving as evidence of erroneous people’s attitudes towards appropriateness.
• Photographer Lene and The Heart Project Lene has had an opportunity to work in a large variety of creative mediums, utilizing the skills acquired in a number of projects. The use of paint, charcoal, and mosaic in her art creates a […]
• “Tom Torlino Student File” Photograph Analysis The before and after photo of a native American student is vivid evidence of American influence on the disappearing cultural heritage. What was the impact of such boarding schools on the identity and values of […]
• The History of Photography of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century They assured the recognition of photography as a kind of art. Alfred Stieglitz created a series of clouds photographs that combined the technical and aesthetic principles of his work.
• Ethics in the Age of Digital Photography by Long In his article, ‘Ethics in the age of digital photography,’ Long expresses his concern over the problem of “the public…losing faith” in photojournalists.
• Composing With Light or Color in Photography Light, shadow and color are the components of an image. The balance between each element affects the quality of the image.
• Photography, Impression and Alfred Stieglitz A striking example of this is the emergence of photography as a category of art after the invention of the camera.
• Macro Photography: Features, Techniques, and Common Mistakes It is customary to call macro photography the shooting of objects comparable in size to the size of a film frame or much smaller than it.
• Town Photography Studio Online Branding In order to convince our potential customers about the quality of our new product, we need to use attractive images of the new product which can easily capture the attention of our potential customers.
• Dream Deferred: Timeless Relevance. Poem and Photograph Review The relevance of showcasing social inequality through voices and faces of the Afro-Americans in the United States draws the parallel between the historical and contemporary context.
• The Beauty of Photography: An Opinion However, ultimately, I leaned toward the DSLR cameras and still photography rather than the motion of the film. As a result, good photos make one look at the situation from a different angle, capturing a […]
• Chris Hondros: War Photographer This leads the author of the current paper to discovering the key three topics that have to be covered in order to evaluate Hondros’ contribution to war photography during the first decade of the 21st […]
• Jack Dykinga’s Photography In addition, this use of light adds to the beauty of color harmony and color saturation in the picture. Because of the duly chosen perspective and the angle of shooting along with the time of […]
• Margaret Bourke-White: A Historically Significant Photographer Among Bourke-White’s exclusive works are the photos of the First Five-Year Plan in the Soviet Union, the daily struggle of the Allied infantrymen in the Italian campaign, the siege of Moscow, and the conflict between […]
• Julia Margaret Cameron: A British Photographer As the photographer later wrote in her unfinished memoir “Annals of my glass house”, from the moment of the first shot, the camera had become a link to the world of artists, scientists, and writers.
• History in Abbass Studios Ltd. Fonds’ Photographs The approximate creation date of the collection is mentioned as 1940 the year when the eldest of the Abbass brothers became interested in photography. George was in charge of the office and the studio.
• HDRI and Tonal Mapping in Photography The science of High dynamic range imaging has developed the dynamic range of processing, transmission, and representation of imaging photography beyond the traditional forms.
• Photography: Robin Fox’s Proof of Concept The subject and concept of the exhibition is as unique as it can be and the gallery is the best place where the photos can be exhibited.
• Horst Wackerbath and His Great Photography This mystic twist in Wackerbath’s work keeps people looking out for more of his works in a bid to try to understand not only how he manages to pull such a delicate feat, but also […]
• Knowing Andy Warhol’s Life and Photography The Post-Modernist Movement of pop art and culture in the latter half of the twentieth century was a revolutionary movement and it was started by the American artist Andy Warhol’s very amundane’ looking paintings of […]
• Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography The photographs in Without Sanctuary provide a record of the intolerance and racism that was standard in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.
• Ansel Adams and John Sexton: World Photography The first assumption that we can make about these works is that both of them achieve an effect of optical illusion and this is one of the most difficult tasks for a photographer to carry […]
• Has Digital Technology Improved the Quality of Photographs? In the case of our apple, most of the wavelengths are absorbed with the exception of those that lie on the red end of the spectrum.
• Photograph Works by Laura McPhee This particular feature in the works of Laura McPhee impresses the viewer owing to the mastership of the photographer in playing with the background and foreground.
• Evaluating Evidence: Paperwork and Photographs The paperwork evidence is one of the main evidence, as it is the prejudicial evidence of the witness, who walked the cemetery and saw the act of vandalism of the tomb.
• Photography Exhibition “Threads” in Melbourne The subject matter of the photograph under consideration is the nature of identity or, to be more exact, the exploration of it.
• Pia Johnson’s Photography Exhibition The main aim of the photographer is to stop the time and to make people to be delighted by the beauty of the picture, as the time is the substance which flows fast and the […]
• Three Questions About Photography If they do, it is through the main webpage where it is displayed and the user is not allowed to copy the image.
• Photo Art: Photographic Exhibition This is the photo produced by Samantha Everton in 2009 as a part of her Vintage Dolls series: The photo is installed in a frame during the exhibition to ensure the considerable attention the viewers […]
• Photographic Exhibition in Melbourne Australia The concept of space in the exhibit depicts that of loose and un-articulated. But nowhere in the exhibit were photos shown of men or women building gabions baskets, or showing the river.
• The Exhibition “The Arlen Ness Photographic Exhibition” Watching the landscape in reality and the same view on the photo, the viewer may not notice the difference as the professional photographer, the artist tries to make his/her photos so realistic and inconceivable that […]
• Yosemite National Park and Connecting With the History of Photography By the time the Yosemite series was started, Carleton Watkins was a famous master of the so called wet-collodion technique that made use of the “mammoth” plates made of glass to allow for the better […]
• “China and Its People in Early Photographs” by John Thompson In spite of the fact the majority of his works are believed to be documentaries, Johnson is often referred to a photojournalist, because he often focused attention on the social aspect of human relationships, it […]
• Atta Kim: Presentation of a Photographer While many techniques Atta uses are not new, in some context the works of Atta can be considered as a philosophical opinion that was visualized using photography.
• Photography: Brief History of Invention At that time all images produced were in black and white and eventually all masters of the art came to believe that the only artistic way to record photographic images was in black and white. […]
• Photographic Pioneer: Paul Strand One of her eyes is a stone eye and with the other eye she is trying to view something on her left side.
• Edward Steichen in History of Photography Edward Steichen is one of the central figures in the history of photos. The astonishing sale charge of the print is, in part, featured to its one-of-a-kind personality and to its curiosity.
• Contribution of Modernity to Photography and Film Movements Modernity in visual arts and cinema is part of the ever-changing world, wherein the establishment of ideas, different people in the world of art participates in experimenting with the forms and styles of art, thus […]
• History of Photography: Brief Overview of the Most Exciting and Impressive Ways of Cultural Representation Photography is one of the most interesting and impressive ways and techniques of culture representation. For instance, photography documented the culture of the 1920s and world wars, the Great Depression-era, and the liberation movement.
• History of Photography: Road and Poplar Trees Analysis The picture artistically depicts the distance between the poplar trees making the trees on the right side to be smaller than the left side.
• Snapshot vs. Fine-Art Photography in Digital Age The scale of distribution of everyday photography is associated with the improvement of photographic technology and the spread of electronic and digital technologies, making exploring snapshot photography particularly relevant. To analyse the functions of snapshot […]
• Imogen Cunningham, an American Female Photographer The high contrast and neutral tones of the image bring to the viewer’s attention a variety of details, including the woman’s hair, her wrinkles, and the unevenness of her skin.
• Edward Weston’s Modernist Photographs More attention should be paid to the analysis of Weston’s photographs and the comparison of their style to my photographs. The object in my black-and-white photograph looks like a kind of tubes, which texture is […]
• Photography & Folk Art: America in the 1930s Exhibition The exhibition “Photography + Folk Art: Looking for America in the 1930s” is a remarkable venue where visitors can see and even feel the atmosphere of the years of the Great Depression in the United […]
• ”Preferences for Photographic Art Among Hospitalized Patients With Cancer” by Hanson ET Al. The opinions of stakeholders, who are patients and nursing staff, as well as the outcomes of treatment, are factors that influence the response to the research question.
• Philosophy of Photography as an Art In conclusion, it is necessary to stress that photography is a specific form of art that involves the use of technology.
• Photographs and Danto’s View on Art This argument comes from the idea of the philosophic meaning of art and its ability to impact viewers by representing some objects of reality in unusual ways.
• Robinson, Emerson, and Photography as an Art Both of them viewed the newly created form of image capture as a medium for the expression of art, but their views on the nature of the movement were radically different.
• “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” the Photography by Roger Fenton Finally, from the standpoint of war, such a large number of cannonballs on the road testifies to the scale of the hostilities, which also makes one wonder about the alarming consequences of attacks. Therefore, the […]
• Photography Changes Who We Think We Might Be This essay is interesting and was chosen because Bergen is famous for her acting and not for photography, yet she clearly has a passion for this trade.
• A Distinct Camera Vision in Jacques-Henri Lartigue’s Photograph Also, there is no focus on the man’s feet because the camera concentrated on the leap in water, and the feet remain out of the water.
• Moholy Nagy’s “Laci and Lucia” Photography In order to make it fit the life in the 21st century, the famous quote by Laszlo Moholy Nagy can be rewritten in the following way: “The illiterate of the future will be the one […]
• Andreas Gursky’s “The Rhine II” Photography In The Rhine II, the photographer attempts to deliver “an accurate image of a modern river” and invites viewers to see the river enclosed in the deep-colored stripes of grass, concrete, and the clouded sky.
• Nature and Animals in Photographs In the picture, a viewer sees the glassy and smooth water surface, the banks and fir trees covered with snow, and a high dome of the mountain in the center of the photograph.
• Photography: Is It Possible to Recapture the Past? The problem of photography is twofold: the problem of representation, and the presumption of reality that the photographic images elicits in the viewer the pervasive belief that a photograph depicts a referent, a real “how […]
• Photography: A Cultural History In the middle of the 1850s, there were many photographers, whose projects caused people’s admiration, and the works of Edouard Baldus, Imperial Library of the Louvre, and Roger Fenton, Rievaulx Abbey, may be considered as […]
• A Critique of a Photographer’s Works: Matthew Abbott Matthew Abbott underlines one simple fact that Istanbul is the only place where East has all chances to meet West, this is why it is hard to predict the traditions and interests of Turkish people, […]
• Richard Drew’s Photography: Visualizing September 11 This would have ensured that I had accommodated the rights of media, clients, society, and other stakeholders while still adhering to media ethics.
• Hector Mediavilla Photographic Series “The Congolese Sape” The photographer’s decision to organize the order of photographs influences the viewer’s interpretation of the image. The photographer captures an image from a focal position; the decision to capture the image is influenced by the […]
• “Memorial Day” by Anthony Suau: Photography Analysis The background of the image is blurry, indicating that when Suau took the photograph, he had one central area of focus and opted to indiscriminately isolate the other items in the shot.
• Photography and Society Through History: Political and Ideological Functions Another example of a thoroughly politicized photo, which during the course of the thirties was meant to promote the cause of Communism, is Alexander Rodchenko’s Pioneer with Trumpet:
• Photography and Its History This is termed as documentary photography in which a value of a photograph is measured by its worth of objectivity, which depends on the subject matter, the perception of why it is taken, and the […]
• Michael Lesy’s Wisconsin Death Trip: Photograph Analysis As highlighted by the focus of the light and the enlargement of the image, this makes the ribs of the horse to be the photo’s point of focus.
• Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography Duchamp and his work have a connection through the refusal to accept the views of the majority of artists and art lovers.
• Photographs in a Written Society Visual literature requires one to have the ability to analyze, interpret, and understand images with the aim of acquiring meaning through the cultural context in which the image exists.
• Perspectives on Photography In his essay, John Berger states that the war in Vietnam was one of the most influential transformations of the world.
• Fascination With Crime Through the Art of Photography The image is not for the faint of heart; however, it is fascinating in a way it is shot. It is evident that the robber fired a bullet into the camera to hide his identity.
• Photography: The Art of Seeing The images that she deals with are associated with saucer magnolia blossoms and she aims to capture the exquisiteness of trees hence bringing-forth that magnificence to the attention of her audience.
• Photography Ethics, Reliability, and Principles As a result, it is often possible to guarantee that the photo provided in the news is not a product of Photoshop.
• The Photograph Description and Criticism In this picture, the foreground is where the woman is seated and the background depicts transparent window of the apartment The photograph was likely taken in a broad daylight since outside the apartment to be […]
• Photography Company’s Public Relations Campaign The accomplishment of each aim will be performed following the specificity of the targeted audience that is supposed to be composed of the middle-class population of the Seattle Area. In the meantime, they expect that […]
• Child Labor, Great Depression and World War II in Photographs The impression is of isolation and yearning for daylight, freedom, and a childhood foregone, in the midst of a machine-dominated world.
• Social Documentary Photography Then and Now In the first place, he tried to inform people about the diversity of life in the city, which was a common trend for the beginning of the twentieth century.
• Hine’s Indianapolis and Kruger’s Help! Photography Nevertheless, unlike Lewis Hine, Barbara Kruger chooses to combine different media, and in this way, she departs from the canons of the modernist art. Overall, this comparison indicates that the works of Lewis Hine and […]
• The Photography Gallery in Melbourne The photos are mounted on glass and owing to the fact that the setting is indoor, a lot of lighting is applied to prevent any darkness.
• Melbourne’ Keith Gallery: Photography Analysis However, at the entrance of the gallery, I took a picture that shows the entry of the gallery that has photos on it.
• The Basic Critical Theory for Photography According to Berger, images depend on the way of seeing of the person who has taken them. Berger insists that ‘publicity images’ and ‘advertising images’ have the same meanings.
• Andy Goldsworthy: Sculptor and Photographer Besides, the vast majority of artworks of this sculptor are installed in nature in the woods, fields, plains, at the ponds, or rivers.
• Lewis Hine’s Photography Art Being born at the age of great changes and stresses, Lewis since his childhood was interested in the imprinting of some great moments of the history of American society.
• Technologies: Amateur Film vs. Cell Phone Photography An analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the two forms of photography concludes the paper. Cellphone and film cameras have apertures that regulate the quantity of light passing to the sensor and film, respectively.
• Photographic Representation of War Photography captures the moments that are gone, portrays the reality of the past, and preserves the images that used to be real at the second when the photo was taken.
• Photography in Arabic Countries New and new tendencies and fashion took over the generations of European and American photographers, while for the photographers of Arabic and Middle Eastern countries the art of taking pictures was still new.
• The Pool’ Pictures Balance in Photography Because of the unique combination of urban background and the green elements, as well as the presence of such details as the cast iron, the change in the pictures of the pool not only shows […]
• The Photography of the Arctic Ice Panoramic View The vivid play of light and color in the picture brings out the striking separation of the detached mass from the main iceberg.
• Photograph Discussion: Physical Elements and Content Telling from the photograph, the three boys were part of the group playing games in the background and were called to attention by the photographer.
• Photography: Finding Beauty in the Ordinary Therefore, the beauty that the photo represents is largely derived from the actual object. While Sontang acknowledges that the close-up is a reflection of truth, it is still subject to the photographer’s viewpoint.
• The Photographic Approaches Towards American Culture of Robert Frank and Gary Winogrand Frank practiced many forms of photography and he did photography both for the commercial and fashion purposes and was considered an influential American photographer who was also a mentor to many young American artists.
• Photographic Approaches for Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Ann Parker In this review, a comparison is made of the photographic approaches of Ann Parker and Manuel Alvarez Bravo, looking for similarities and differences in their art.
• Surrealist Photography and Experimental Photography These two techniques showcase objects in an in-depth manner, concentrating specifically on the surroundings of the image and creation of an abstract form of art that shaped the history of photography.
• Photography and Beauty Perception His resistance stemmed from the fact that in the early decades of photography, photographs were meant to idealize images and for a picture to be considered beautiful, its subject had to be something beautiful.
• Araki Nobuyoshi and Photography He promoted a new genre of art which is up to date cherished in Japan and other parts of the world.
• Photographic Approaches Towards Landscapes: Peter Henry Emerson He insisted that science was a core part of art and photography and thus, he endeavored to prove how the two were completely dependent. He was able to capture the economical effects of the depression […]
• A Comparison of Photographic Approaches Towards American Culture Siskind, on the other hand, used photography as a skylight into the subconscious minds of Americans and a technique to react to the dirty happenings experienced in World War II.
• Photography of High-End Art However, in order to capture the beauty and uniqueness of the original artwork, as well as incorporate a range of innuendoes concerning the artist, the era that the art was created in, etc, very specific […]
• The Description of Nature in Jack Dykinga’ Photographs There are several aspects of these photographs that I would like to discuss, namely the interplay of light and shadow and structured space. This is the main lesson that I learned from the works of […]
• Jack Dykinga’s Outdoor Photography The works of Jack Dykinga have longed appealed to because this photographer is always able to emphasize the beauty of nature by paying attention to color patterns and space.
• Photography’s Impact on Society The pictures taken from scenes of dying soldiers in the American civil war are some of the reasons that evoked strong emotions, which led to the end of the war.
• Weegee and Goldin’s Photography This paper compares Weegee and Goldin’s photography to address the connection between the middle years of the twentieth century, when photography began to expose realities in life, and the modern distrustful era.
• Mads Nissen, a Danish Documentary Photographer He has helped in expressing the plight of the minority groups in the society and also in championing of human rights of the people all over the world.
• History of Photography Culture Thus, as a result of the credibility, reliability and realism of photography, the development of photography was closely related to the industrial revolution, the scientific revolution and advancement in philosophy.
• Critical Analysis of Barthes’s Camera Lucida-Reflections on Photography He maintained that a picture has a potential to create deceitfulness in the fantasy of ‘what is’, where the description of ‘What was’ is so specific.
• “Escaping to Reality: Fashion Photography in the 1990s” by Elliot Smedley Written by Elliot Smedley, “Escaping to Reality: Fashion Photography in the 1990s” explores how contemporary fashion photography is adopting realistic styles by using realistic activities contrary to ideal styles that had dominated art and photography […]
• Surrealism in Photography Surrealism, which started after the World War I, in photography is one of the indicators of most important revolutions that have taken place over the history in the area of photography.
• The Art of Photography: Seizing the Moment Flying The vividness of the gender stereotypes which the art of photography disclosed was incredible, because of the new ideas of gender gap and the gender prejudices which the boldest photographers dared to take picture of.
• Critique of a Photographer, Tom Williams The major point is that the works of Tom Williams can be found in both private and public collections, this is why the popularity of his works raises day by day, and, it is quite […]
• Exhibitions at the International Center of Photography Focusing on the photographs by Chim, it is possible to feel as the part of the European society between the 1930s and 1950s.
• Photographer Jeff Wall and His Paintings The room is clearly in a state of disarray as the dishes and several other things in the room are unattended to.
• Photography Art in 20th Century In its turn, this reflected the fact that during the course of the 20th century’s initial phase, the classical conventions of physics have been thoroughly revised, due to the emergence of the Theory of Relativity.
• Photography: Jimmy Nelson’s Piece of Art According to Nelson, the Maasai are part of the few tribes in the world that are quickly fading due to civilization and the increasing need for the world to form a global community.
• Photographer – Robert Frank This element is evidenced by Rodeo which was taken in 1954 in New York city because one can not identify the face of the guy who is leaning on the dustbin but since Robert’s photos […]
• Social Uses of Photography: Post-Mortem Photographs The art of photography was invented by Louis Daguerre in the 18th century; this invention promoted the representatives of the middle class family with an opportunity to memorize the events and people and not to […]
• The Exhibit Twilight Visions at the International Center of Photography The medium of photography in the post World War I period was almost too deliciously convenient a vehicle for certain proponents of the Dadaists and the Surrealists.
• Evolution of Photography: Trying to Seize the Moment In his book A Concise History of Photography, Helmut Gernsheim takes the reader onto a time travel, explaining the origins of photography and telling about the opportunities that photography offers.
• What Is the Difference Between Film and Digital Photography?
• What Is the Most Popular Photography Website?
• How Does Photography Affect the Social and Political Arena?
• How Photography Has Changed Our View of the World?
• Why Was Post-Mortem Photography Popular?
• When Was Photography First Invented?
• How Romanticism and Photography Shaped Western Modernitymodern?
• What Was Photography Originally Called?
• How Digital Processes Change Photography?
• What Photography Can and Really Should Document?
• What Is the Best Photography Course for Beginners?
• Why Photography Is an Art?
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Photography Thesis Ideas

Micah mcdunnigan.

Graduate-level photography students, and sometimes undergraduates, culminate their program of instruction with a thesis. A thesis is a novel creation using tools the student acquired during his course of instruction. In photography, students use technical skills they have acquired, and concepts behind the form, to create a portfolio.

Explore this article

• Conveying a Story
• Beauty in Unexpected Places
• Understanding Emotions
• Photojournalism

1 Conveying a Story

Photography is not about simply capturing a snapshot of an objective reality. As students will have learned during their courses -- and probably realized before they started formally studying photography -- photography uses real-world images to convey the world as the photographer sees it. In this way, a photographer can tell a story by preparing a scene for his camera. Some photography students experiment with ways to tell stories with photographs as their thesis.

2 Beauty in Unexpected Places

Most people are familiar with conventional images of beauty: the picturesque landscape, the 20-something on the street, the touched-up photograph of the supermodel on a magazine cover. Leonard Nimoy, famous as an actor but also a photographer, undertook a project to show beauty in photographs of women who were overweight but comfortable with their body image. Students can follow in this vein to seek out beauty in unexpected places, and capture it using what they have learned in photography class.

3 Understanding Emotions

Art expresses the infinite range of human emotions. These include basic contentment and fear of the unknown, to more abstract notions such as awe and the sublime. Photography students working on their thesis can experiment with expressing emotions with photographs. Different items evoke these emotions in different individuals, just as different individuals notice different items in any given situation. Students can use what they've learned to prepare scenes, or simply photograph everyday situations, and use their technical skills to emphasize the scene's elements that evoke the photographer's emotions. By emphasizing these elements in the photographs, they can communicate what the photographer felt, and why.

4 Photojournalism

Not all photography is purely artistic. Photojournalists use their skills to capture real-life scenes that tell, and supplement, very real stories. Photojournalists -- especially those covering chaotic or violent situations -- do not always have the freedom or ability to frame scenes that other photographers could. Students specializing in photojournalism can choose to do their thesis on ways in which photojournalists can capture discrete events amid fluid scenes. Students can use protests and demonstrations as a laboratory for these techniques.

• 1 SMITH Magazine: Full On With Leonard Nimoy
• 2 Academy of Art University: Graduate Student Showcase -- School of Photography
• 3 Digital Photography School: Telling Stories With Photos

About the Author

Micah McDunnigan has been writing on politics and technology since 2007. He has written technology pieces and political op-eds for a variety of student organizations and blogs. McDunnigan earned a Bachelor of Arts in international relations from the University of California, Davis.

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artistswithavision

A list of the most interesting dissertation topics on photography.

Developing a dissertation on a photography topic can be intriguing. There are many aspects of photography to consider based on what interests you the most. There are example papers to consider written on similar topics you can read for inspiration. You should also keep project guidelines close by to ensure your topic idea is suitable for what you need to produce. Here is some advice on developing topic ideas on photography along with writing prompts to encourage your own creativity.

Start with What You Know and Research

Writing a dissertation may include completing quite a bit or research. This may include looking at other works related to your topic. In doing so you may wonder if you could do something different that hasn’t been done before. When learning more about your idea this is when it becomes clear on whether you can present something different and fresh. The best place to start looking for a topic is you and what you know.

Think about what you have learned so far and how to take it and make it into something unique. This can give leads on where to look for further insight on your idea. This could also help in brainstorming or when you need further perspective or different angle of the idea. Be open to review what you come up with to you instructor. They can also give insight on how to make your idea into a solid topic.

10 Interesting Ideas for a Potential Dissertation Topic

The aspect of photography itself can be broken up into different subjects. Thinking about how photography is used can give a number of ideas to consider quickly. As you understand more about how photography is used in daily life or through career interests it offers more insight to consider for a good topic. Think about what is trending and controversial topics related to this subject. Here are 10 possible writing prompts for developing a good photography topic for your project.

• Using an iPhone to take pictures.
• The art of Selfies.
• Popular places to take pictures.
• Most important features of a good camera.
• Technology advances in picture taking.
• High definition technology and its role in movies.
• How did scrapbooking get started?
• The inventor of the camera or aspect of photography.
• Photography as a hobby.
• Elements that make a photo ugly.

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How to Create an Engaging Photo Essay (with Examples)

Photo essays tell a story in pictures. They're a great way to improve at photography and story-telling skills at once. Learn how to do create a great one.

Learn | Photography Guides | By Ana Mireles

Photography is a medium used to tell stories – sometimes they are told in one picture, sometimes you need a whole series. Those series can be photo essays.

If you’ve never done a photo essay before, or you’re simply struggling to find your next project, this article will be of help. I’ll be showing you what a photo essay is and how to go about doing one.

You’ll also find plenty of photo essay ideas and some famous photo essay examples from recent times that will serve you as inspiration.

If you’re ready to get started, let’s jump right in!

Table of Contents

What is a Photo Essay?

A photo essay is a series of images that share an overarching theme as well as a visual and technical coherence to tell a story. Some people refer to a photo essay as a photo series or a photo story – this often happens in photography competitions.

Photographic history is full of famous photo essays. Think about The Great Depression by Dorothea Lange, Like Brother Like Sister by Wolfgang Tillmans, Gandhi’s funeral by Henri Cartier Bresson, amongst others.

What are the types of photo essay?

Despite popular belief, the type of photo essay doesn’t depend on the type of photography that you do – in other words, journalism, documentary, fine art, or any other photographic genre is not a type of photo essay.

Instead, there are two main types of photo essays: narrative and thematic .

As you have probably already guessed, the thematic one presents images pulled together by a topic – for example, global warming. The images can be about animals and nature as well as natural disasters devastating cities. They can happen all over the world or in the same location, and they can be captured in different moments in time – there’s a lot of flexibility.

A narrative photo essa y, on the other hand, tells the story of a character (human or not), portraying a place or an event. For example, a narrative photo essay on coffee would document the process from the planting and harvesting – to the roasting and grinding until it reaches your morning cup.

What are some of the key elements of a photo essay?

• Tell a unique story – A unique story doesn’t mean that you have to photograph something that nobody has done before – that would be almost impossible! It means that you should consider what you’re bringing to the table on a particular topic.
• Put yourself into the work – One of the best ways to make a compelling photo essay is by adding your point of view, which can only be done with your life experiences and the way you see the world.
• Add depth to the concept – The best photo essays are the ones that go past the obvious and dig deeper in the story, going behind the scenes, or examining a day in the life of the subject matter – that’s what pulls in the spectator.
• Nail the technique – Even if the concept and the story are the most important part of a photo essay, it won’t have the same success if it’s poorly executed.
• Build a structure – A photo essay is about telling a thought-provoking story – so, think about it in a narrative way. Which images are going to introduce the topic? Which ones represent a climax? How is it going to end – how do you want the viewer to feel after seeing your photo series?
• Make strong choices – If you really want to convey an emotion and a unique point of view, you’re going to need to make some hard decisions. Which light are you using? Which lens? How many images will there be in the series? etc., and most importantly for a great photo essay is the why behind those choices.

9 Tips for Creating a Photo Essay

Credit: Laura James

1. Choose something you know

To make a good photo essay, you don’t need to travel to an exotic location or document a civil war – I mean, it’s great if you can, but you can start close to home.

Depending on the type of photography you do and the topic you’re looking for in your photographic essay, you can photograph a local event or visit an abandoned building outside your town.

It will be much easier for you to find a unique perspective and tell a better story if you’re already familiar with the subject. Also, consider that you might have to return a few times to the same location to get all the photos you need.

2. Follow your passion

Most photo essays take dedication and passion. If you choose a subject that might be easy, but you’re not really into it – the results won’t be as exciting. Taking photos will always be easier and more fun if you’re covering something you’re passionate about.

3. Take your time

A great photo essay is not done in a few hours. You need to put in the time to research it, conceptualizing it, editing, etc. That’s why I previously recommended following your passion because it takes a lot of dedication, and if you’re not passionate about it – it’s difficult to push through.

4. Write a summary or statement

Photo essays are always accompanied by some text. You can do this in the form of an introduction, write captions for each photo or write it as a conclusion. That’s up to you and how you want to present the work.

5. Learn from the masters

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Making a photographic essay takes a lot of practice and knowledge. A great way to become a better photographer and improve your storytelling skills is by studying the work of others. You can go to art shows, review books and magazines and look at the winners in photo contests – most of the time, there’s a category for photo series.

6. Get a wide variety of photos

Think about a story – a literary one. It usually tells you where the story is happening, who is the main character, and it gives you a few details to make you engage with it, right?

The same thing happens with a visual story in a photo essay – you can do some wide-angle shots to establish the scenes and some close-ups to show the details. Make a shot list to ensure you cover all the different angles.

Some of your pictures should guide the viewer in, while others are more climatic and regard the experience they are taking out of your photos.

7. Follow a consistent look

Both in style and aesthetics, all the images in your series need to be coherent. You can achieve this in different ways, from the choice of lighting, the mood, the post-processing, etc.

8. Be self-critical

Once you have all the photos, make sure you edit them with a good dose of self-criticism. Not all the pictures that you took belong in the photo essay. Choose only the best ones and make sure they tell the full story.

9. Ask for constructive feedback

Often, when we’re working on a photo essay project for a long time, everything makes perfect sense in our heads. However, someone outside the project might not be getting the idea. It’s important that you get honest and constructive criticism to improve your photography.

How to Create a Photo Essay in 5 Steps

Credit: Quang Nguyen Vinh

1. Choose your topic

This is the first step that you need to take to decide if your photo essay is going to be narrative or thematic. Then, choose what is it going to be about?

Ideally, it should be something that you’re interested in, that you have something to say about it, and it can connect with other people.

2. Research your topic

To tell a good story about something, you need to be familiar with that something. This is especially true when you want to go deeper and make a compelling photo essay. Day in the life photo essays are a popular choice, since often, these can be performed with friends and family, whom you already should know well.

3. Plan your photoshoot

Depending on what you’re photographing, this step can be very different from one project to the next. For a fine art project, you might need to find a location, props, models, a shot list, etc., while a documentary photo essay is about planning the best time to do the photos, what gear to bring with you, finding a local guide, etc.

Every photo essay will need different planning, so before taking pictures, put in the required time to get things right.

4. Experiment

It’s one thing to plan your photo shoot and having a shot list that you have to get, or else the photo essay won’t be complete. It’s another thing to miss out on some amazing photo opportunities that you couldn’t foresee.

So, be prepared but also stay open-minded and experiment with different settings, different perspectives, etc.

5. Make a final selection

Editing your work can be one of the hardest parts of doing a photo essay. Sometimes we can be overly critical, and others, we get attached to bad photos because we put a lot of effort into them or we had a great time doing them.

Try to be as objective as possible, don’t be afraid to ask for opinions and make various revisions before settling down on a final cut.

7 Photo Essay Topics, Ideas & Examples

Credit: Michelle Leman

• Architectural photo essay

Using architecture as your main subject, there are tons of photo essay ideas that you can do. For some inspiration, you can check out the work of Francisco Marin – who was trained as an architect and then turned to photography to “explore a different way to perceive things”.

You can also lookup Luisa Lambri. Amongst her series, you’ll find many photo essay examples in which architecture is the subject she uses to explore the relationship between photography and space.

• Process and transformation photo essay

This is one of the best photo essay topics for beginners because the story tells itself. Pick something that has a beginning and an end, for example, pregnancy, the metamorphosis of a butterfly, the life-cycle of a plant, etc.

Keep in mind that these topics are linear and give you an easy way into the narrative flow – however, it might be difficult to find an interesting perspective and a unique point of view.

• A day in the life of ‘X’ photo essay

There are tons of interesting photo essay ideas in this category – you can follow around a celebrity, a worker, your child, etc. You don’t even have to do it about a human subject – think about doing a photo essay about a day in the life of a racing horse, for example – find something that’s interesting for you.

• Time passing by photo essay

It can be a natural site or a landmark photo essay – whatever is close to you will work best as you’ll need to come back multiple times to capture time passing by. For example, how this place changes throughout the seasons or maybe even over the years.

A fun option if you live with family is to document a birthday party each year, seeing how the subject changes over time. This can be combined with a transformation essay or sorts, documenting the changes in interpersonal relationships over time.

• Travel photo essay

Do you want to make the jump from tourist snapshots into a travel photo essay? Research the place you’re going to be travelling to. Then, choose a topic.

If you’re having trouble with how to do this, check out any travel magazine – National Geographic, for example. They won’t do a generic article about Texas – they do an article about the beach life on the Texas Gulf Coast and another one about the diverse flavors of Texas.

The more specific you get, the deeper you can go with the story.

• Socio-political issues photo essay

This is one of the most popular photo essay examples – it falls under the category of photojournalism or documental photography. They are usually thematic, although it’s also possible to do a narrative one.

Depending on your topic of interest, you can choose topics that involve nature – for example, document the effects of global warming. Another idea is to photograph protests or make an education photo essay.

It doesn’t have to be a big global issue; you can choose something specific to your community – are there too many stray dogs? Make a photo essay about a local animal shelter. The topics are endless.

• Behind the scenes photo essay

A behind-the-scenes always make for a good photo story – people are curious to know what happens and how everything comes together before a show.

Depending on your own interests, this can be a photo essay about a fashion show, a theatre play, a concert, and so on. You’ll probably need to get some permissions, though, not only to shoot but also to showcase or publish those images.

4 Best Photo Essays in Recent times

Now that you know all the techniques about it, it might be helpful to look at some photo essay examples to see how you can put the concept into practice. Here are some famous photo essays from recent times to give you some inspiration.

Habibi by Antonio Faccilongo

This photo essay wan the World Press Photo Story of the Year in 2021. Faccilongo explores a very big conflict from a very specific and intimate point of view – how the Israeli-Palestinian war affects the families.

He chose to use a square format because it allows him to give order to things and eliminate unnecessary elements in his pictures.

With this long-term photo essay, he wanted to highlight the sense of absence and melancholy women and families feel towards their husbands away at war.

The project then became a book edited by Sarah Leen and the graphics of Ramon Pez.

Picture This: New Orleans by Mary Ellen Mark

The last assignment before her passing, Mary Ellen Mark travelled to New Orleans to register the city after a decade after Hurricane Katrina.

The images of the project “bring to life the rebirth and resilience of the people at the heart of this tale”, – says CNNMoney, commissioner of the work.

Each survivor of the hurricane has a story, and Mary Ellen Mark was there to record it. Some of them have heartbreaking stories about everything they had to leave behind.

Others have a story of hope – like Sam and Ben, two eight-year-olds born from frozen embryos kept in a hospital that lost power supply during the hurricane, yet they managed to survive.

Selfie by Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is an American photographer whose work is mainly done through self-portraits. With them, she explores the concept of identity, gender stereotypes, as well as visual and cultural codes.

One of her latest photo essays was a collaboration with W Magazine entitled Selfie. In it, the author explores the concept of planned candid photos (‘plandid’).

The work was made for Instagram, as the platform is well known for the conflict between the ‘real self’ and the one people present online. Sherman started using Facetune, Perfect365 and YouCam to alter her appearance on selfies – in Photoshop, you can modify everything, but these apps were designed specifically to “make things prettier”- she says, and that’s what she wants to explore in this photo essay.

Tokyo Compression by Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf has an interest in the broad-gauge topic Life in Cities. From there, many photo essays have been derived – amongst them – Tokyo Compression .

He was horrified by the way people in Tokyo are forced to move to the suburbs because of the high prices of the city. Therefore, they are required to make long commutes facing 1,5 hours of train to start their 8+ hour workday followed by another 1,5 hours to get back home.

To portray this way of life, he photographed the people inside the train pressed against the windows looking exhausted, angry or simply absent due to this way of life.

You can visit his website to see other photo essays that revolve around the topic of life in megacities.

Final Words

It’s not easy to make photo essays, so don’t expect to be great at it right from your first project.

Start off small by choosing a specific subject that’s interesting to you –  that will come from an honest place, and it will be a great practice for some bigger projects along the line.

Whether you like to shoot still life or you’re a travel photographer, I hope these photo essay tips and photo essay examples can help you get started and grow in your photography.

Let us know which topics you are working on right now – we’ll love to hear from you!

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Ana Mireles is a Mexican researcher that specializes in photography and communications for the arts and culture sector.

Penelope G. To Ana Mireles Such a well written and helpful article for an writer who wants to inclue photo essay in her memoir. Thank you. I will get to work on this new skill. Penelope G.

Herman Krieger Photo essays in black and white

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Browse through the thesis descriptions below, or use Ctrl+F / command+F to search for specific keywords.

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To submit your own thesis, go here and click sign-up ! You'll get reports telling you often it's downloaded, and from where around the world!

Adam Finkelston   – NOW YOU SEE ME   – 2023

Now You See Me, is an ongoing series of photography-based linocut self-portraits. The title alludes to  the familiar ending of the axiom, “now you don’t”— implying that while you see me… my body, my  experiences, and perspectives on my life, there are many parts of my existence that you don’t see in these  images. The storytelling aspect of my images illustrates only moments and pieces of my truth. The images are  about me, but they are also about a character I play. The character represents a man who inhabits constructed  spaces acting out the dramas and moments of reflection in everyday life. In this thesis, I intend to make a  connection between the indexicality of photography and the gestural aspects of printmaking. These two ways  of making images – photography and printmaking – are emblematic of the balance between reality and fiction  in my work. My prints seek to show visualizations of my own thoughts and feelings. By starting with a  photograph, I can capture my poses and surroundings in a realistic way, but by departing from the photograph  into drawing and printmaking, I can add or subtract from the original photograph, incorporating details and  quasi-surrealist imagery to enhance the impact of the images. Editing out personal details allows for clarity  and a deeper connection to the universal, harnessing the totality of human experience. The gestural  expectations and nature of drawing and printmaking add a fictional element to the reality of the photograph. A drawing is always necessarily removed from whatever it represents. Even in a direct observational drawing, the artist is a filter between reality and its interpretation. In these prints I am rooted in photographic reality  but adding my own interpretations and reveries through the addition of drawing and printmaking

Harrison Irving Loomis   – American Moments   – 2023

I see the spectacle of society. Brady’s photographs of civil war battlefields haunt my mind as I  walk across the grounds of an American fort in Maryland, where history is performed by reenactors as though trapped in time. As I photographed tourists performing for their own images at Niagara Falls, I question whether their digital keepsakes hold any value, a bad picture  becomes a forgotten experience, but a great experience should be remembered. In Times  Square, tourists stare at the billboards of New York advertising, thinking they’ve found the  beating heart of a city, when the local office workers just try to avoid it. Those same office  workers might be happy to go to a baseball game, but they’ll be focused on their laptops more  than the game, like the suits I found in box seats at Comerica Park. The structures of most  stadiums organize people like a mini city, each person in their place, at levels determined by  class. While everyone is free to walk Boston Common, only the privileged will get to look out on  it without stepping outside, divided by apartment walls and glass windows. Yet everyone comes  together to enjoy the fireworks show on New Year’s Eve, the dazzling lights and concussive  blasts remind them they’ve been alive for another year and ask what they’ll do in the next. My  photographs claim that it doesn’t really matter, the spectacle will still be there, in different  forms, in different colors, in different American Moments. Sometimes I wish I could just enjoy  the show...

Jessica Bonifas   – Filmmaking is a River: My Journey Towards the Camera   – 2023

I use filmmaking as a tool to alleviate suffering. During difficult times in my life I turned to the  camera as I am able to express myself freely without explanations or words. The camera acts as  a bridge between myself and others, allowing people to cross into the mind of the filmmaker.  I’ve titled my most recent film, Fulaing is a Gaelic word meaning to suffer. I use the Gaelic  language as a homage to my Irish heritage and for the preservation of the language itself. This  short experimental film was shot on Super 8 analog film and projected in the gallery. I use fulaing  to describe how I feel sometimes as a mother, filmmaker, and human struggling to survive in the  world today. Fulaing is a piece of my story told in a loose experimental style to express the  adversities that I have faced, and overcome, in my life

J udit German-Heins   – A MONSTER IN THE SHAPE OF A WOMAN   – 2023

This work is centered on my experience as a woman, a survivor, a host. It acts as a  proof of my existence. My photographic images are drawn from stories, dreams, and  feelings about my own experiences and illustrate struggles that I and many women  face through their lives. I am interested in the complexity of being a woman biologically,  socially and historically. My photographs are made with the wet-plate collodion technique, commonly used in  the late -19th century. The slow process of pouring the sticky, volatile, and flammable  emulsion, which records my experiences for centuries to come, allows me to embrace  my past gradually. As I carefully mix acid, alcohol and salt to let the molecules work  together to bring the latent images alive, I wonder about and consider my body as a  collection of cells that encompass my ancestral history and that also carry traces of my  children — dead and alive. For me, noble metals I use interpret and capture the  intrinsic value of a female body and soul.

R. Kevin Combs   – The Milltown   – 2023

In this thesis, I will introduce you to the Town of Fries and many of its characters. The  characters include me, some of the residents, and even the fog. We may find that the fog  obfuscates certain truths about small town life, and occasionally, represents the differences I believe we have in this country. I will tell you stories about how the town was built from the  ground up at the turn of the twentieth century to use the natural resources in the area and to  exploit the tendency for wages to be lower in the Appalachian Mountains than in other parts of  the country. I will tell you the story of the Town of Fries through my photographs and narration.  You might even call it a performance. The story will provide a lesson in tolerance in a divided  age and may assist in lifting the veil of fog that is a metaphor for our society and culture.

MFA Photography and Integrated Media Thesis Menu (2013-2022) Online Thesis Folder

Cotton Miller – The Limbo of Loss -  2013

Our entire lives we spend counting, counting up and counting down. The good things we count down to, and the bad things always seem insurmountable. When we are young, we think more is almost always better. As we get older in age and experience we begin to realize less is almost always more. Counting isn’t always about quantifying; it’s about identifying patterns. Counting is an attempt to find order or structure to gain understanding about the thing being counted. The myelin sheath is the protective layer of the axons in the brain, similar to the insulated coating on electrical wires, and in MS the immune system breaks down this protective barrier. When myelin is lost, and the brain-blood barrier is broken, the axons can no longer effectively conduct signals, which will manifest as a variety of symptoms including physical and cognitive disability. After the demyelination occurs, the symptoms that are experienced might subside, but never be fully extinguished. The possibility of loss, the inevitability of loss, and the uncertainty can be equally as powerful and life altering as the actual loss. According to Kübler-Ross, who introduced the hypothesis of the Five Stages of Grief, “The limbo of loss is in itself a loss to be mourned. Uncertainty can be an excruciating existence. It is the loss of life, going nowhere or going nowhere slowly without knowing if there will be a loss. This has become the foundation of my work, the idea that the mind is distinctly different than the brain.

Tommy Matthews 2013

If I ever build a house I will make it very skinny and tall with all the rooms built on top of each other, strung together through each other’s dreams as we slept. What about the person on the bottom then? Who was holding me in their dreams? Maybe this is what it means to grow up, to care and to provide instead of to receive. I grabbed the framed family photos and laid them flat on their backs, and carefully stacked one on top of the other till they made up a half-foot of thickness. Stepping on the frames I was conscious to keep my weight on the outside edges of the stack where it felt more secure. With time enough to make one last move I followed Vitus to the path that careened down a dirt embankment and bottomed out in a small opening of trees. The forest floor was hidden by arching ferns rising as high as my waist. An old felled Douglas fir was there; having collapsed long ago it was now a nursery log. It was half hollowed out inside and I crumpled my body in its opening. Vitus wedged himself alongside me and curled up in the shape of a scallop. As consciousness began to slip away I was eased to know I’d wake here, happy to be held in the grace of this great nurturer of the forest.

Nikki Seggara - Thalassophobia: A Philosophical Narrative On Congenital Fear – 2013

Though I have no recollection of it, it took years for my mother to get me to willingly bathe. She recalls that, even as an infant bathing in the sink, I would scream to the top of my lungs - even harder at the prospect of getting my head wet to wash my hair. It was the thought of deep water terrified me; the thought of what lies beneath - this trepidation of being pulled under, either trapped and unable to surface, or overcome by a creature where my vulnerable body, drifting in the vast sea, gave me no fighting chance. They could feel the pounding of my heart and the panic I struggled to contain for fear of giving myself away.  It was the thought that my body could forever be lost in the lower depths, never to reemerge.  I could never escape the feeling that this was...my fate.  This question of shared phobia has enveloped the deepest corners of my mind. As an artist, I choose to make work that is symbolic of my quest for reasoning behind my fear. There are many who claim that innate fear exists, without any presence of personal history as a factor. These proclivities have been analyzed at great lengths for at least 50 years within the field of Ethology. Ethologists are particularly concerned with innate behavior, and believe that such behaviors are the result of genetics and in the way genes have been modified during evolution to deal with particular environments (Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Kramer) Konrad Lorenz, often described as the ‘father of ethology,’ spoke about this V-shaped shadow as a releasing mechanism for an innate fear response.  The same fear response is witnessed in apes, who are all congenitally frightened of snakes, one of the few innate animal-based fears to also be widely present in humans. It is a grandiose notion, that my fears were ingrained into my brain from ancient genetic blueprints, passed down from generation to generation.  She paradoxically loved what she also feared, as do I.

Angelina Kidd – Imagining the Unknown - 2013

I believe there is a soul and that it is energy manifested as light. We are connected to the cosmos through the very calcium in our bones and the iron in our blood, which originated from stars that died billions of years ago. My belief is that the earthly body is separate from the soul and that our light energy returns to the cosmos. Energy will not cease to exist, as it cannot be destroyed according to Laws of Thermodynamics. Therefore, if the soul is light energy, then it does not disappear and is instead transformed. Twenty-three years ago, my mother’s life was transformed by cancer. As I approach the same age of her departure, I am constantly aware of my own existence. This is why my investigation into the unknown is relevant and personal. I have no evidence for the human soul or the afterlife, as my research does not set out to prove this. Instead, my consciousness chooses to have faith in having a soul and this leads me into an artistic investigation of how I perceive the afterworld. With my light constructions, I do not seek to exploit this emotion; rather, I aim to provide a visual salve and to encourage my viewer to consider that after death, life will be unknown.

Anna Yeroshenko - Enduring Peripheries

An analysis of 1980’s architectural aesthetic and a physical thesis portfolio of re-photographed folded paper abstractions of architecture in the Boston area.

Anne Eder – Myth as a Semiological Language

Thesis dealing with nature, myths, magic, talismanic objects accompanied by a physical portfolio consisting of an outdoor installation in the Emerald Necklace featuring her giant moss-men made of objects and materials found in nature.

Danielle Ezzo – The Intentional Object

Thesis focused upon the concept of intimacy and its relationship to her professional work as a re-touching artist. This was supported by large scale photographs of only the actual re-touched elements of fashion model portraits and bodies.

E V Krebs – so-totally-ev.tumblr.com

A thesis that is a total interactive experience, different for every “reader” depending upon the links the “reader” elects to follow. A traditional thesis felt too static, whereas the Tumblr venue allowed her to create avenues for exploration through the use of hyperlinks; developing a sense of depth as the “reader” clicked, going deeper and deeper.

Lanai King – Clot: A personal Exploration of Blood as Myth and Medium

Thesis analyzing candidate’s personal psychosis and fear of blood and her exploration of using blood as a medium in artistic expression. Thesis was supported by a video illustrating short vignettes of her explorations.

Natalie Rzucidlo – 2,364 Cuts

A these that explored the relationships and differences between hand-made and industrial objects by mirroring the automatic repetition of a machine through the process of paper cutting and realization through lithography. Physical work were monumental paper abstractions graphically illustrating sound.

Nicole Carriere – The Big Picture

Thesis dealing with the dissection of family photographs through visual language, symbols, and performance of gender.

Tabitha Sherrell – Untitled

Thesis focused upon three generations of women within a single family and supported by large scale photographs of tableaus illustrating reconstructed domestic spaces. Writing dealt with the analysis of posing, and the way photography is used to represent the self and family.

Taylor Singmaster – My Father’s Daughter

Thesis written as an autobiography to document values instilled through childhood and realized in adult life. The thesis was supplemented with a video of the candidate’s work with Down Syndrome afflicted children and how her future career would be dedicated to a foundation dealing with this disease.

Tomi Ni – Wu Xing

Thesis about the lives and existence of illegal aliens, living in building and room-sized communities and their sacrifices to pay off the fees for smuggling them into America and keeping their family healthy, educated, and hopeful. Physical work in the form of photographs of this life.

Crystal Foss – Seeing the self Through the Forest of Judgement: Self Portrait & Power

Thesis engaged in a representation of her life being judged by others for being an overweight young woman. The visual work supplemented the writing and consisted of video, music, and uncompromising mural sized self-portraits.

Katie Doyle – 13 Ways of Looking at X

Thesis analyzing Wallace Steven’s poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. The thesis deconstructed the poem and then reconstructed it in the form of a journal to represent how the identical sentiments related to her present life. Physical work existed in the form of a video illustrating the relationships of words and images.

Kwangtae Kim – Soul Scape

A thesis discussing non-representational forms of photography as an invitational bridge into a state of meditation. The physical work took the form of massive scaled photographic abstractions of natural objects, such as his child’s hair, or water, seen in a way to obstruct identification. These works were painted upon in the style of a Sumi calligrapher.

Maryam Zahirimehr – In the Name of God, The Beneficent, The Merciful

A written thesis telling the stories of her life growing up female in the strict Muslim culture of Iran and how those experiences shaped her future. A video illustrating one particular story enhanced the reader’s experience by bringing the story to life. This thesis was subsequently accepted and shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

Maura O’Donnell – Untitled

This thesis considers the female as it is contested in American culture. The work speaks to the confusion of specific roles of woman, and the communication of contradictory views of femininity. The work and the manner in which it is shown translate the ugly encounters she experiences on a regular basis. Physical work consisted of short vignettes in video format.

Natalie Titone – The Excavation of Meaning

Thesis exploring the immigrant experience in America through the memories, textures, and materials used by the people building a life for subsequent generations. Writing dealt with a narrative story-telling experience and physical work was realized by laminations of photographic images from family albums onto porcelain and ceramic materials. Techniques were learned while in an internship at Harvard University.

Traci Marie Lee - The Implications and Consequences of the Snapshot and the Constructed Image

This thesis documented her search for knowledge about a southern aunt who was a pioneer in women being active in politics. The thesis was based on an envelope of pictures and newspaper clippings and was resolved in the thesis through paper constructions and video, with a strong concentration on sound.

Alicia Turbitt – Hearing what Seeing Says

This thesis documented the degeneration of sight of her sister’s boyfriend and his efforts to remain in a normal life in spite of his increasing loss of sight. The physical thesis work was in video form and featured vignettes such as all of his friends taking turns teaching him how to drive a car down a dark road in the winter.

John Dearing – Chemical Geometry - 2017

Dedicated to a 19 th c. path of investigation following Herschel’s Anthotype process, John made hundreds of combinations of food sources and chemistry and painted the solutions on papers exposed to UV light over time. The thesis included research into chemical additives to our food, the effect of UV rays on those solutions, and the nature of abstract expressionism and constructivist painting, the forms he created for his tests on paper.

Natalie Schaeffer – Trust - 2017

A series of lengthy video vignettes in an installation that illustrated the state of a multi-year relationship in the midst of a decision to go forward. The written component supported the process and analysis of the video investigation.

Noelle BuAbbud – Triduum - 2017

This thesis involved a trinity of videos revolving around the visual perception and recognition of the human body in a state of suffering or sorrow. Research detailed the paintings and sculptures she felt were emotionally profound because of the ways in which artists such as Caravaggio, Picasso, Goya, and Kollwitz depicted grief and suffering through the physicality of the human figure. Videos illustrated the research and were in the subjective forms of shadows, as in the parable from Plato’s Cave.

Xiao Zhao – Ferryman - 2017

This thesis focused on the parables, spirituality and theology of Zen Buddhism and that belief system’s impact upon him growing up in China, and his relationship with his grandmother who was a shaman. Visual components were photographic abstractions.

Sara Bonnick - Acts of Almost Touching (And Other Short Stories, Poems, and Analysis) - 2017

This thesis explored the aftermath of intimacy and was represented through a series of videos, photo-sculpture, and installation. Her work formed a language of clothing as it related to emotional connection of direct physical contact. She investigated the concept through repetition, mending, healing, repairing, and attaching. All alterations to an article of clothing displayed a psychological repurposing interaction and compromise between two bodies. The written component was formed via short stories and free verse poetry.

Britney Segermeister - 2018

In a dissection of social media, its features and influences can often be misinterpreted as an assortment of symptoms associated with a variety of mental illnesses. The ability to rapidly change personas, and impulsively construct personalities, could be a description if Dissociative Identity Disorder or nothing more than editing pictures of yourself on a number of unrelated sites. My thesis project is a visual depiction of signs and aspects of mental illness interpreted by the unique etiquette, trends and algorithms of social media.

Casey Cullen 2018 – 22 Poplar - 2018

My thesis, 22 Poplar, is a partial collection of the many memories my childhood home inspired, and in a very real way, a thank you to the people here, and gone, who raised me in it. I am interested in how memories, old and new, personal and familial, coalesce to fill and define personal domestic spaces. My investigation questions how memories, and the events associated with them, are affected by the removal or change of a key component in that moment. My memories, of our home, and the objects within, are now the only things I have left of my grandfather. After he passed, could some part of his being have gone to the same elusive space where memories reside? Probably not, but I would like to think my interpretation of the faux colonial house on 22 Poplar Street will get me a little closer to wherever his beautiful spirit rests.

Candice Inc 2018 – She Knows Me Now - 2018

In collaboration with my mother, my thesis explores the complexities of communication within a mother-daughter relationship following the death of her husband… my father. Throughout our life together, my mom and i were able to talk about anything and everything without conditions. The traumatic death of my father completely altered our dynamic and we became strangers to each other. Unable to recognize the unique pain and loss that the other was experiencing, our ability to understand one another reached a point where spoken language failed. The only way for me to speak at this point was through the trust in my art and visual expression. Words were useless and so I turned to images. In our recent past, this created an even greater problem because my visual approach to telling the story of my suffering was even more incoherent to her than speech. I was forcing her to learn my side of the story, my truth. Children need to recognized by their parents and my mother’s resistance to that adjusted view of her adult daughter continues to be a constant battle for myself. It is a struggle being an artist and a daughter. She Knows Me Now is a test for us. Testing my responsibilities as her daughter, testing us both to not attack or point a finger of blame, and testing my responsibilities as an artist where telling my truths is my priority.

Rebecca Chappelear - 2018

My work explores the evidence that contributed to my family’s dysfunction and ultimately its collapse, brought on by my stepfather’s own separate trauma and depression—complications that had been ingrained into his personality long before we entered his life. My images are constructions based the events that took place during the period that he and my mother were married, in which time I had gone from my mid-teens to my early twenties, and my sister from kindergarten into eighth grade. A photographic narrative allows me to select the memories that are crucial to my and my audience’s understanding of the events that took place; moments that of course were not photographed, as a family reserves the taking of pictures for times meant to be remembered and looked back upon. With the creation of these photographs, I am able to investigate my experience with a man whose role as as my father deteriorated as he was engulfed by his alcoholism and depression.

Samantha Nieto – Catholic Girlhood Narrative - 2018

Growing up, I idolized everything Disney; Mickey Mouse was my god, The Sensational Six were my saints. Disney movies became my homilies and scriptures, they taught me life lessons and helped me imagine that I could be anything I wanted to be. My Lady of Guadalupe, Pocahontas, was my hero as a child and brought strength to me as an adult. She was the only Disney “Princess” I figured I could be due to our similar dark hair and complexion, which I eventually learned to appreciate. Because of her, I knew I was my own heroine princess who didn’t need a prince charming to save the day, I only needed to have faith and believe. My work is interested in the idea and systems of belief as it occurs in my life and in the objects that represent my values and what I believe in. I am expressing my beliefs from the past, and the present. Each piece represents a time in my life, with reference to a foundation of the Mexican catholic faith I grew up with and have transformed from. I am interested in the connection that one has with faith, symbols and objects of value stemming from childhood memories and experiences testing faith. With time, all these elements look different and change meaning as we age.

Brittney Callahan – Paradise Entertainment Feature of the Week: Splint – 2018

Watching television has been part of my daily ritual since childhood. Every time it was turned on, I was able to enter into new worlds that were exotic compared to my house. Each story on the screen filled me with hope, inspired me with passion, and took me to a place where everything, no matter how terrible, seemed to have a purpose, an arc, and an end. These visual narratives birthed the idea of an equational life, one that seemed simple and mathematical. After I realized that life couldn’t be firmly calculated, I decided to invent my own alternative realities of which I could control through photography and video. My primary interest is in self-construction, how identities and personalities are formed, how they manifest and shift, and the characterization of “self”. With my current work, I am utilizing the techniques of cinema and theater to construct a fictitious reality, that emulates the surface of a world that I have long-envied and idolized: Hollywood. The process of performing in my designed space is cathartic because, instead of being a passive spectator to someone else’s constructed narrative, I create my own and actively participate in it.

Gretjen Helene – Susurrus – 2019

I am currently working on a 24 minute linear video titled ‘Susurrus’ that will be exhibited within the interactive installation ‘Lost In Thought.’ ‘Susurrus’ is a collage of moving imagery which I am calling a living collage mindscape. This projected video is central in the installation and will be introduced by 11 paced photographs titled ‘Framed,’ and accompanied by a resin sculpture titled ’60% water’. For the sake of this introduction to my work, I will concentrate on the video ‘Susurrus’ alone. A discussion about the other installation elements would disrupt their intended affects.

JiSun Lee – The planet, LOVE – 2019

Art allows me to express unexplainable emotions and feelings I have never felt before. Meaning by emotions, for example, sadness and happiness have to co-exist to reveal each other’s existence and the value they have.I always had a hard time controlling my emotions. It may be because I’m a sensitive person; I feel my emotions in huge waves. Many incidences happened to me because my inability to express and control my emotions, Love, relationships, avoidance, jealousy, hatred, anger, and happiness, aresometimes hard for me to express this with words. But I am learning from these contradicting emotions like the light and the dark. After creating my art, I have discovered myself in the process of expressing emotion through art. And I learned to control myself. This is the way I protect myself. The only way to express my sensitive emotions that cannot be created in words because there’s no words for them. My language -I speak through my art.

Kristen Matuszak – Confined In My Skin – 2019

When deciding to create my book, “Confined In My Skin,” I was distinctively thinking aboutcinema, and film reels in particular. The viewer experiences my book the way they would acinematic film, I am continuously manipulating the perception of the viewer. They see what theywant to see, then as they flip through the pages, they get a sense of something much darkerand deeper than their original intake of the work.

Molly Meador – RabbitRabbitRabbit – 2019

The main conceptual focus in this work is obsession, but it has become clear that my living definition of this word is different than the normal interpretation. This is not a project about how obsession can affect a person, and it’s not about obsession as a direct, generally temporary mental state in relation to a specific topic. It’s about how it affects me and the resulting compulsions that occur as a way to live with and control these fixations. It’s about how the obsession can be used and dealt with, but it’s not a solution. An obsession, though intense and consuming, can be finite and have a course. There is a difference between an obsession and an obsessive personality. A life defined by obsession cannot sustain itself with any sort of harmony unless an order is established. That necessity is where this project comes from; and to establish an order to something, you must sometimes first tear it apart.

Vanessa Fischer – This Way Through The Darkness – 2019

I still desire to create a space to preserve and experience my past, only now these memories live outside of my mind in my art. This Way Through the Darkness stems from the Memory Box I created as an adolescent while mourning the loss of my mother. Looking at household surfaces has been my way of connecting to the memory of my mom, because these were the surfaces she touched every day, the same surfaces I have in my life today

Will Harris – Evelyn Beckett – 2019

In this work I confront the complexities of my Nana, Evelyn Beckett’s dementia, by fabricating the pieces that have gone missing.  Within my Nana's mind, history and fiction collide, creating something strangely new, haunting and at times painfully beautiful.  Ten years ago was now ten minutes ago.  There were no seasons; the clocks stood still. My grandmother was both lost and reborn. Fragments of the person I used to know would come to me now and then, but she was no longer my Nana and there was no one to hold our familial history together.

Byron Hocker  – Red Sky Morning – 2020

I have found ways to escape the daunting task of everyday life. I can use photography to play. I am able to convert the seriousness of life to my own comedic circus. Roland Barth in Camera Lucida said it more eloquently than I when he wrote, “What pricks me is the discovery of this equivalence. In front of the photograph of my mother as a child, I tell myself: She is going to die, I shudder...over a catastrophe which has already occurred. Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is a catastrophe.” Because of this truth, I must play and create because it is all too serious. I can also transform these people, my family, into anyone I want when I am in control of the photograph.  

Ge Wang   – A Reluctant Citizen – 2020

Photography has been a narrative tool for my family. I did not have much of my own voice in the family narrative because my parents were the photographers. I picked up photography soon after I left China and started to live alone in the US. I became the executor behind the camera, recording my very own story. Even still, I still lose my sense of time here very often. The memories I have formed in America have never managed to dig themselves a deep hole in my mind.

Lys Ciani  – Field Notes – 2020

I practice camera-less photography  and  assume  the  rights  to  these  elemental  processes in hopes of gaining a more grounded and intrinsic understanding of the landscapes I observe, interpret, and create.  I’ve adopted this type of field work as a personal collection of visual-mappings of uninhabited environments.  Field notes are composed of two components: descriptive information and the observer’s reflection about the study that is being conducted. Each print carries light, minerals, and contaminants of the water; literal recordings of the environment they took form in. Untidy records recalling weather conditions, time of day, and where on the bend they were made. They coalesce to form a portrait, a trace of the shifting identity of a riverbed.

Matt Klos  – Field Notes – 2020

In the last four years I have been acclimating, building, and modifying my life. Creating a new normal and reestablishing what it means to be me both physically and psychologically. Paralysis is the metaphorical-well of inspiration I draw upon to create my images, sculptures and studio working environment. I utilize my paralysis as both coping mechanism and visual source, documenting and interpreting my body’s devastation within the fine lines of reality and fabrication.

Anna Clem  – To the Garden and Back – 2021

To the Garden and Backconsists of four distinct series—The Perennial Garden, Floating Petals, Tucked into the Garden Bed, and Visitor—and a video piece called In Her Garden, through which I have examined from all sides my longing for the impossible return to innocence, obsession with preservation, and my present-day “gardens.”

Faith Ninivaggi  – Present History – 2021

I’ve stared into the eyes of murderers and abusers. I’ve studied and documented the masterful kinesics of great athletes, influential politicians, and infamous public figures. Through my lens, I’ve captured victories and tragedies. I’ve documented the literal forces of nature. I’ve talked to thousands of strangers, tapping on shoulders, stopping people in the streets, and knocking on doors...all for the chance to tell their story through photographs.

Fangwei Xu  – The Sun – 2021

The Sun is a series of works that touch on ideology and its relationship to social context, gaze, and subconsciousness, represented by various media. Ideology for me is nothing but a framework, and it requires the context of media to deliver the meaning. Humans have countless ways to explain an idea, like in China, there are multiple words to define snow, or rain, and each method of expression, each medium corresponds to a different kind of cultural interpretation: superficial or cognitive, conscious or unconscious, temporary or permanent, literal or connotative.

John Nanian  –Chepiwanoxet  – 2021

This thesis will explore the idea of place by trying to un-derstand what a small spit of land in Narragansett Bay called Chepi-wanoxet was before colonial ownership. After visiting the area countless times with and without a camera, I am, in collab-oration with the island and the sea around it, attempting to make drawings and light-markings, using organic and light-sensitive materials, and imperfection to show its essence and its meaning to me.

Wenshuai Shi (Ace)  – Isolation – 2021

I have made a series of photographic and video works using "isolation" as the theme. From my initial project “HOME,” completed in Shanghai in 2018 and 2019, to my recent project, “My Fear Journal,” made in Boston this past year. This past year, my intention was to illustrate to the viewer not the state of my loneliness, but the process of my thinking, reflecting on isolation.

Zachary Hayes  – Seeing is Believing, Looking is Loving – 2021

In Seeing is Believing, Looking is Loving, I shall discuss the internal complexities of being able to relate and empathize with others and how photography acts as a vehicle for me to be able to do these things. Here you will be introduced to I (Want To) Love You, a body of images that I have pulled from my personal catalogs of people that I choose to commit myself to.

Abigail Egan   – In This Home  – 2022

My thesis, titled In This Home, is about documenting experiences with my family that are reshaped by the passage of time and the evolution of technology, while navigating my conflicting ethical responsibilities to my art and to my family amidst a world of digital obsession. Sharing my art with a wider audience for the first time, this body of work investigates the layers of emotion within the family home, exploring the intricacies of loving one’s family unconditionally.

Ariana Sanchez   – From Here to There – 2022

My move to New England was a complete 180 from what I had known in Florida. Once settled, I explored my new neighborhood and started photographing its characteristics, searching for ways I could connect both as a person and a photographer. There were days that I wished I could go back to Florida and experience that environment once more. Here in Cambridge I once again felt like an outsider, wondering if this was just another temporary place for me. I still don’t know. My images simultaneously represent my comfort and discomfort to where I am; to where I hope to belong. My desire for “home” is strong. It’s difficult to put down roots in shifting soil.

Jill Bemis  – Homing Instinct – 2022

Homing Instinct is an exploration of walking and the physicality of film photography as it mirrors a poetic and visceral connection to the land.  An ephemerality lingers within the work–a longing to experience and hold on as larger forces cause land and home to change forms.  The work holds space for lightness but also defies it through an ominous representation of the cycles of loss within nature.  I am especially drawn to the birds that live between land and sky, between rooted experience and unmoored wonder. I have a yearning to understand what it is like to be a bird, and a simultaneous acceptance of knowing that I never will.  There is both a separation and a closeness between us.  I do not pretend to understand why, but the observed experience of a bird feels wildly linked to my own returning to the marsh.

Monica Philbin   – Otherworld  – 2022

I began this thesis as a journey to find myself and to piece together evidence of the spirit world in my photographs to show my mom. I soon realized that it would probably be impossible to make a photograph of an actual ghost and subsequently turned my focus up on the mysteries found in my secular and manageable world. Photography has become my way to express myself and to communicate with the world. 

Natasha Major   – The Outpouring  – 2022

The Outpouring is the title of this document that moves between memoir and musing, examining how I came to understand photography as a mediator between inner and outer life as well as how my process has developed and deepened over the last two years. Two artist books are connected to the written document: For an Anxious Mind (2021) and The Light Here and Elsewhere (2022), each is a vessel for communicating a particular feeling or an experience. The Outpouring discusses the organizing principles of each work, what led to their conception and the artists who have helped me locate my work in a larger context.

Quentin Gong   – One, And Two Stories  – 2022

Dramatizing what I have experienced allows me to turn my ordinary experience into a more interesting story. In this way I use my own personal life as a basis for my films. Snap Out of It and Mary were two short films I made in 2021 and 2022. These films are about ordinary people’s stories, and they are both created based on my personal life experience. We are all born ordinary, but we all have the potential to experience extraordinary lives.

Tiziana Meneghel-Rozzo   – The Power of Camera-less Photography to Communicate a Haptic Experience   – 2022

Through my projects, I am searching for a way to visually communicate a moment experienced in time through what it brings to light: a face, a tear, the physical act of leaving an impression or sharing an emotional gesture. I use photography as a way to connect and communicate a lived experience and to visualize bodily intimacies. In my images I like to wonder, imagine, and question what I am looking at — what I know and do not know. It is within the dark realities of a chaotic world that I, as an artist, feel compelled to respond with marks that carry meaning within them. In the two projects that follow, Haptic a nd Tears, I use a 20th-century photographic technique to focus on touch and contact, to convey meaning at the level of physical operation.

Travis Flack   – Lifelong Obsession With Oblivion   – 2022

As of right now, photography has been in my life for more than half the years I have lived on this planet. It has moved with me, and sometimes in spite of me, marking creative growth, existential frustration along with the very specific idiosyncrasies that I now realize are the traits that define me as an artist. In conjunction with this medium that I have chosen as a method of explanation and expression is this other entity, a need for extremes of varying intensities that I have come to realize is the driving force behind a lot of the subjects I choose.  These intense experiences  have broken down my existence in complex ways, making me feel like someone who is in a constant state of  repair or rebuilding. Lifelong Obsession With Oblivion started out as the calculated detonation of my life in order to review it. From this exploded view the work mutated,  from the very literal physical form to the figurative forensic symbolic investigation. Lifelong Obsession With Oblivion is a photographic survey about surrendering, about giving into something that completely consumes you to the point of complete, wonderful, beautiful deconstruction.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'The role of photography'

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Manley, Christopher Geoffrey. "Photography and the role of the artist." Thesis, Durham University, 2012. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3493/.

Bonnell, Sian. "The camera as catalyst, the photograph as conduit : an exploration of the performative role of photography." Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2013. http://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/336516/.

Hoecker, Robin E. "The role of photography in Peru's truth and reconciliation process." Diss., Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10355/5105.

Aslanidou, Georgia. "The role of Landscape Photography in establishment of National Parks." Master's thesis, Akademie múzických umění v Praze.Filmová a televizní fakulta. Knihovna, 2016. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-364437.

Yale, Nathaniel W. "Images for a Nation: The Role of Conservation Photography in American Environmentalism." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2014. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/pomona_theses/106.

Martin, Ryan. "A Practical Study of the Role of the Cinematographer." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2005. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/227.

Garnello, Anthony John, and Anthony John Garnello. "Establishing the Role of Digital Repeat Photography in Understanding Phenology and Carbon Cycling in a Subarctic Peatland." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/624140.

Pepe, Toni. "Angle of repose /." Online version of thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1850/6183.

Edge, Sarah-Jane. "Photography and identities : a case study and related photographic practice : an investigation into the role of early photographic representations of working-class women from London (1860-1865) as represented in the photographic collection of Arthur J. Mu." Thesis, University of Ulster, 2005. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.428807.

Mountain, Michelle Fiona. ""The secret rapport between photography and philosophy" considering the South African photographic apparatus through Veleko, Rose, Goldblatt, Ractliffe and Mofokeng." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002211.

Field, Claudia Louise. "Focusing the lens : the role of travel and photography in the personal and working lives of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2015. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/57242/.

Pelser, Monique Myren. "Roles : "I am as intently observed as the people photograph"." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007647.

Forscher, Helene. "Animals in the landscape : an analysis of the role of the animal image in representations of identity in selected Australian feature films from 1971 to 2001 /." Gold Coast, Queensland : Bond University, 2007. http://epublications.bond.edu.au/theses/forscher.

Charlesworth, Ian. "Gesture and documentary : an integrated studio and theoretical based study into the role of drawing and photography in fine art practice." Thesis, University of Ulster, 2006. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.423436.

Sandström, Karoliina. "Self and no-self : an examination of the role of ideas about the self in actor training." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2013. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/20887/.

Constantinou, Odysseas Symeon. "Sound-to-picture : the role of sound in the audio-visual semiosis of non-fiction film." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2007. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/54109/.

Elliott, Hilary. "The place from which I see : a practice-led investigation into the role of vision in understanding solo performance improvisation as a form of composition." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2013. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/18063/.

Bogue, Elinor E. "A study of the gatekeeping role of chief photographers : the social identity theory and in-group bias in the assignment of sports photos." CardinalScholar 1.0, 2009. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1538076.

Schanding, Desireé Rose. "The ephemeral form and objects of inspection /." Online version of thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1850/10828.

Pertoldi, Brigitte. "Approche photographique d'un espace urbain : des Français à Rome entre 1846 et 1883 /." [Paris] : B. Pertoldi, 1990. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb35676957f.

Brookes, Anne. "Richard Symonds in Rome, 1649-1651." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2000. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/11404/.

Schuppert, Mirjami. "Archive play : on the role of the curator in mediating artistic interventions into photographic archives." Thesis, Ulster University, 2016. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.701057.

Malherbe, Johanna Francina. "Die rol van neentiende-eeuse fotografie in eietydse bewaring : William Roe en Graaff-Reinet." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/95870.

Moliner, Xavier. "El Fotomuntatge arquitectònic. El cas de Mies Van der Rohe." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Girona, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/7858.

Kim, Sangduck. "Public theology for peace photography : a critical analysis of the roles of photojournalism in peacebuilding, with the special reference to the Gwangju Uprising in South Korea." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31507.

Ducos, Laure. "Alfred-Nicolas Normand (1822-1909) Ou les leçons de Rome." Thesis, Tours, 2014. http://www.theses.fr/2014TOUR2002/document.

Atkinson, Elizabeth Susan. "The formative years : the evolution of photography's role in British periodical advertising during the 1920's and 1930's." Thesis, Royal College of Art, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.295775.

Waller, Natalie. "Bloom : Thoughts for food— re-thinking the norms of (toxic) consumption and masculinity." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för design (DE), 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-104112.

Shaw, Michael. "The fin-de-siècle Scots Renascence : the roles of decadence in the development of Scottish cultural nationalism, c.1880-1914." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2015. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6395/.

Riches, Margaret. "Widening horizons : a study of the role of photographic images in the development of Key Stage 2 children's geographical perceptions of distant places." Thesis, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.273513.

Miller, Larry S., and Norman Marin. "Police Photography." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2015. http://amzn.com/1455777633.

Hacking, Juliet Louise. "Photography personified : art and identity in British photography 1857-1869." Thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.266787.

Wu, Xin 1970. "Opacity in transparency : from drawings and photographs of the modern domestic spaces by Mies van der Rohe." Thesis, McGill University, 2000. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=31031.

Mikuriya, Junko Theresa. "Imitations of photography." Thesis, Goldsmiths College (University of London), 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.518923.

Yu, Kit-yee Flora, and 余潔儀. "Postmodernism and photography." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1991. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31950152.

譚美兒 and Mei-yee Eve Tam. "Orientalism and photography." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2002. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B4413938X.

Collingham, Maria. "Photography : locus suspectus." Thesis, De Montfort University, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.391990.

Larsen, Jonas. "Performing tourist photography /." Roskilde : Department of Geography and International Development Studies, Roskilde University, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1800/788.

Tam, Mei-yee Eve. "Orientalism and photography." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 2002. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B25262099.

Lin, Chiawen. "Photography and Poetry." Master's thesis, Akademie múzických umění v Praze.Filmová a televizní fakulta. Knihovna, 2013. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-172935.

Kirkpatrick, Erika Marie. "Photography, the State, and War: Mapping the Contemporary War Photography Landscape." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/35723.

JIASHEN, HAN, and JING NING. "Study on wedding photography and Strategic business plan for wedding photography Studi." Thesis, Högskolan i Borås, Institutionen Textilhögskolan, 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-20170.

Gheorghiu, Rares Cosmin. "Dark Humour in Photography." Bachelor's thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2018.

Anghel, Ersilia Lucretia. "Fuzzy Poofy: Photography Book." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/243734.

Coombes, Justin. "Photography, memory and ekphrasis." Thesis, Royal College of Art, 2012. http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/1280/.

Lenon, Melyssa Ann. "The chemistry of photography." Diss., Connect to online resource - MSU authorized users, 2006.

Raina, Priyanka. "Architectures for computational photography." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82393.

Paglamidis, Konstantinos. "Semiotics of Humanitarian Photography." Thesis, Malmö högskola, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-22424.

Spero, Susan Belle. "Perspectives on amateur photography /." The Ohio State University, 1988. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487597424138566.

Binnie, Georgina Elaine. "James Joyce and photography." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2016. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/15993/.

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Photography Dissertation Topics

Published by Carmen Troy at January 4th, 2023 , Revised On August 11, 2023

If you are an avid photographer and wish to spend your life doing something that you love, which is obviously photography, you must be thinking about pursuing it further. To become an expert and professional photographer, you will need to study it formally. While many people claim that they can become experts without admission to an institution, you must remember that the basic things you learn from an expert teacher and practice it under his guidance will help you understand and explore photography more than your imagination.

Anyhow, if you have made the right decision of being admitted into a photography course, you must be anxious to graduate and practice it professionally. Hold up! You will need to go through one final phase of writing a dissertation.

If you are supposed to write a photography dissertation but do not really know where to start, you can have a look at some of the most exciting and debatable photography topics suggested by experts.

You may also want to start your dissertation by requesting a  brief research proposal  from our writers on any of these topics, which includes an  introduction  to the problem,  research question , aim and objectives,  literature review , along with the proposed  methodology  of research to be conducted. Let us know if you need any help in getting started.

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2022 Photography Dissertation Topics

Topic 1: an evaluation of the impact of digitalisation on the altering conceptions and communication of contemporary photography..

Research Aim: The research aims to evaluate the impact of digitalisation on the altering conceptions and communication of contemporary photography.

Objectives:

• To analyse the concept of contemporary photography.
• To evaluate the influence of digitalisation photographic conceptions and communication.
• To evaluate the impact of digitalisation on the altering conceptions and communication of contemporary photography.

Topic 2: Investigating the influence of digital photography evolution on the photography methods and affinity towards the profession.

Research Aim: The research aims to investigate the influence of digital photography evolution on the photography methods and affinity towards the profession.

• To analyse the impact of digital tools and technologies on photography as a profession.
• To identify the evolution in photographic methods and the perceptions towards photography as a profession.
• To investigate the influence of digital photography evolution on the photography methods and affinity towards the profession.

Topic 3: An evaluation of the present technologies and cultural methods associated with snapshot photography.

Research Aim: The research aims to evaluate the present technologies and cultural methods associated with snapshot photography.

• To analyse the concept of snapshot photography and identify the available technologies.
• To evaluate the cultural and social contributions to snapshot photography.
• To investigate the impact of present technologies and cultural methods on snapshot photography

Topic 4: Evaluating the impact of visual storytelling on the changing landscape of mass media and society.

Research Aim: The research aims to evaluate the impact of visual storytelling on the changing landscape of mass media and society.

• To analyse the concept of applications of visual storytelling.
• To examine the alterations in the mass media and societal landscape due to the new forms of photography and presentation.
• To investigate the impact of visual storytelling on the changing landscape of mass media and society.

Topic 5: An investigation into the impact of mobile technology on the choices of photojournalism and its associated professional values in society.

Research Aim: The research aims to investigate the impact of mobile technology on the choices of photojournalism and its associated professional values in society.

• To analyse the impact of mobile technology on the scope and extent of photography.
• To investigate the photojournalism choices of invidious and the accepted professional societal values.
• To critically evaluate the impact of mobile technology on the choices of photojournalism and its associated professional values in society.

Topic no.1: photojournalism during Arab spring

Research Aim: Arab spring was a series of anti-govt protests that spread all around the Arab countries in the 2010s. The role of photographers was exceptionally crucial at that point when they were continuously informing the world about the ground realities of the conflict. The aim of the research is to study the role of photojournalists in disseminating accurate information during the Arab spring.

Topic no.2: Scope of photography in the age of social media

Research Aim: Photography was a supplementary hobby and interest, but today it is a full-fledged profession that many aspire to pursue. Photography has gained immense importance, especially in the age of the internet, given that it provides many channels for sharing. The main aim of the research would be to examine and evaluate the scope of photography in the age of social media.

Topic no.3: Photography and ethics

Research Aim: No matter what you take as a subject of photography, you must never avoid the basic ethical norms suggested for photography. The aim of the research will be to study different cases in which the photographers followed and violated the ethics to understand the consequences of each regard.

Topic no.4: Photography and the reflection of culture

Research Aim: Each photographer has his own style, which is usually influenced by many things. This research will study culture as one of the determining factors that affect the style of photography. The research will thoroughly explain the reflection of the photographer’s culture in his photography.

Topic no.5: Photography and advanced editing trend

Research Aim: There are many tools that help us make an image more appealing by making significant modifications. The research aims to explore and identify the impact of advanced editing software and tools on the essence of photography.

Topic no.6: Impact of photo manipulation and self-image

Research Aim: Artificial intelligence has gone so far ahead in advancement that it is able to do anything, merely anything. The prompt changes in the physical features while taking photos are exciting, but on the other hand, they are very harmful. People make themselves look appealing through filters, but when they look at themselves, in reality, they lose their self-esteem. The research will aim to study photo manipulation and its impacts on self-image.

Topic no.7: Art of photography in the 1800s

Research Aim: The main aim of the research would be to discover, understand, and evaluate the art of photography in the 1800s. It is evident that photography would be completely different back in those times, but how much different is a question that the research will address.

Also Read: How to Write Dissertation Aims and Objectives?

Topic no.8: Role of director of photography in a movie

Research Aim: When we watch a movie, we heap praises on the actors, story, and songs, but we do not realize the leading individual behind the lens who makes it look the way it does and connect to the audience. If the audience feels emotional, it is the art of camera work that makes a scene emotional, and it goes for all scenes such as dramatic, happy, and anxious.  The main aim of the research is to vastly study the role of the director of photography in a movie.

Topic no.9: Photojournalism during the pandemic

Research Aim: The current pandemic posed severe threats to humans economically, politically, and societaly. People were circumscribed to their homes due to the surging infected toll. The main aim of the research would be to find out how photojournalists documented covid-19.

Topic no.10: Instagram; a photo-sharing medium

Research Aim: The broad aim of the research would be to study and evaluate Instagram as one of the most popular photo-sharing mediums. It will explore and analyze the thriving trends and the nature of images that are considered instagrammable by photographers.

Topic no.11: Photography and storytelling

Research Aim: Photographs are not merely images but are capable of telling stories if they are being taken rightly. The researcher will take a sample of a few images and critically analyze how they are capable of delivering impactful stories. 

How Can ResearchProspect Help?

ResearchProspect writers can send several custom topic ideas to your email address. Once you have chosen a topic that suits your needs and interests, you can order for our dissertation outline service which will include a brief introduction to the topic, research questions , literature review , methodology , expected results , and conclusion . The dissertation outline will enable you to review the quality of our work before placing the order for our full dissertation writing service !

Topic no.12: Risks of wildlife photography:

Research Aim: While wildlife photography is one of the fascinating types of photography, it requires lots of guts and passion for pursuing. The research will identify the most common problems wildlife photographers face and what security services are offered to the photographers working for an organization.

Topic no.13: Photography vs. painting

Research Aim: The main aim of the research is to compare and contrast photography and painting and figure- out the similarities and differences. It will also determine the best one amongst them with respect to different variables such as depth, story, flexibility, etc.

Topic no.14: Trends in wedding photography

Research Aim: Wedding photography has improved and has become creatively advanced in the last few years. The aim of the research would be to identify and analyze the current trends in wedding photography and forecast the ones for the upcoming years.

Topic no.15: Nature photography:

Research Aim: Nature photography is a vast field that incorporates multiple types. The aim of the research is to study nature photography in detail and explore the features and techniques of each type. 

Topic no.16: Evolution of camera

Research Aim: Nowadays, we use our smartphone cameras; some years back,  digital cameras were commonly used, and in that way, it goes way back to giant cameras. The main of the research would be to critically analyze and evaluate the evolution of the camera over the period of time. 

Topic no.17: Photography lenses and specialties

Research Aim: Lenses are the hearts of cameras, and therefore, cameras are unuseful without lenses. The research will aim to check and evaluate the different types of lenses and offer true insights into their capabilities.

Topic no.18: Improvements required in photography

Research Aim: The research will aim to identify and discuss the major problems in photography that need to be addressed. The researcher can survey different photographers and figure out the improvements that they spire to see in the field of photography.

Topic no.19: Photo manipulation and their repercussions:

Research Aim: Photo alterations and manipulations have become very easy with the different tools and software. They,  on the high levels, are used for political gains and propaganda. The aim of the research would be to explain the repercussions of photo manipulations and alterations. The researcher can conduct case studies to find the most accurate results.

Topic no.20: War photography:

Research Aim: War photography is not less intimidating than wildlife photography; in fact, it is more dangerous. The aim of the research would be to explain photographs taken in war situations. The researcher can pick a couple of different wars from the recent timeline and provide critical analysis.

Conducting photography research can be one of the most exciting things, but when it comes to writing, students become dreadful. But do not worry, we have got your back. Whether you want a section of the dissertation to be written impeccably or the whole of it, we are here. Don’t wait; click here.

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• Consider personal passion and relevance.
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ART 8000 Thesis Research: Photography

After passing to thesis and selecting a thesis topic, graduate students enroll in ART 8000 Thesis Research: Photography with the chair of the thesis committee. Students are expected to write an articulate proposal outlining creative, formal, and research goals for the thesis year. This work culminates in a written thesis and a professionally mounted solo exhibition.

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Thesis Eleven Seven theses on photography

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Thesis Eleven

Christopher Pinney

Benjamin and Barthes provide the starting point for a series of inter-connected propositions which seek to return the theorization of photography to the primacy of the pro-filmic. The index is reclaimed as a trace of the photographic event, capable only of delivering what Barthes termed the corps. The resulting contingency and exorbitance are the basis of photography’s prophetic and ‘troubling’ potential which free us from viewing photography as simply a screen for the social. The argument is advanced largely using material from India and a case is made for a new conception of ‘world system photography’ which folds ‘belated’ histories into the ‘global’.

European Journal of Cultural Studies

caa.reviews

Rosalind Morris

Benjamin, Barthes and the Singularity of Photography

Timothy Mathews

Benjamin, Barthes and the Singularity of Photography presents two of the most important intellectual figures of the twentieth century in a new comparative light. Pursuing hitherto unexplored aspects of Benjamin&#39;s and Barthes&#39;s engagement with photography, it provides new interpretations of familiar texts and analyzes material which has only recently become available. It argues that despite the different historical, philosophical and cultural contexts of their work, Benjamin and Barthes engage with similar issues and problems that photography uniquely poses, including the relationship between the photograph and its beholder as a confrontation between self and other, and the dynamic relation between time, subjectivity, memory and loss. Each writer emphasizes the singular event of the photograph&#39;s apprehension and its ethical and existential aspects rooted in the power and poignancy of photographic images. Mapping the complex relationship between photographic history and th...

Atreyee Gupta

Forma. Revista d'estudis comparatius. Art, literatura, pensament

Based on postcolonial theory and the deconstruction of the orientalist discourse, this article sets the problem of the representation of the ‘Other’ in photographic practice. A new form of orientalism seems to be guiding a large part of the cultural production today, where East is represented as polarized between darkness and light. By taking the example of representation of India, and analyzing the work of some contemporary documentary photographers who have worked on this country, the author tries to uncover the implications of this new discourse and finally advocates for an unorthodox use of the medium.

Michael S Roth

The Renaissance of Roland Barthes special issue - The Conversant

russell stephens

In November of 1977, a French translation of Walter Benjamin’s, Little History of Photography was included in a special issue of the prominent Parisian magazine, Nouvel Observateur. Re-titled Les analphabetes de l’avenir, the essay was only the second translation of Benjamin’s Kleine Geschichte der Photographie to appear in French, with the original 1931 German version having been published in the Berlin periodical Die literarische Welt during the last years of the Weimar Republic. In the late spring of 1979, roughly a year and a half after the appearance of Benjamin’s essay in Nouvel Observateur, Roland Barthes completed a manuscript subsequently entitled La chambre claire: Note sur la photographie, which delineated his own critical approach to the medium of photography. An English translation of Barthes’ text was subsequently published in 1981 under the title Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. When comparing Camera Lucida with this 1977 special issue, one is immediately struck by the fact that Barthes’s short book, which itself contains only twenty-five images, took six of its photographs directly from the pages of Nouvel Observateur. Recent scholarship has highlighted a number of other correspondences between the two works. However, these observations aside, there has been little attempt in the literature to follow the development, alteration, or continuity of Benjamin’s ideas within Barthes’ analysis of photography. Accordingly, this essay examines the ways in which aspects of Benjamin’s critical approach to the medium have influenced and shaped Barthes’ text.

History Compass

Ranu Roychoudhuri

Despite its long and layered histories, critical analyses of photography in India began rather late and remain comparatively limited in number. However, the burgeoining scholarship in the field illuminates photography's role in conditioning modern South Asian experiences, while also highlighting the global character of the medium that complicate the unmarked history of photography. Three intertwined historiographical threads are influential in narrating the colonial Indian camera cultures. The first thread emphasized descriptive histories, the second thread debated cultural essentialism, while the third thread inquired into myriad photographic genres to rethink colonialism. An inquiry into these three threads helps reflect on the intellectual scope of photographs from colonial India, while also directing to future archival and analytical possibilities.

Andy Fisher

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Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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How to write a thesis statement + examples

What is a thesis statement?

Is a thesis statement a question, how do you write a good thesis statement, how do i know if my thesis statement is good, examples of thesis statements, helpful resources on how to write a thesis statement, frequently asked questions about writing a thesis statement, related articles.

A thesis statement is the main argument of your paper or thesis.

The thesis statement is one of the most important elements of any piece of academic writing . It is a brief statement of your paper’s main argument. Essentially, you are stating what you will be writing about.

You can see your thesis statement as an answer to a question. While it also contains the question, it should really give an answer to the question with new information and not just restate or reiterate it.

Your thesis statement is part of your introduction. Learn more about how to write a good thesis introduction in our introduction guide .

A thesis statement is not a question. A statement must be arguable and provable through evidence and analysis. While your thesis might stem from a research question, it should be in the form of a statement.

Tip: A thesis statement is typically 1-2 sentences. For a longer project like a thesis, the statement may be several sentences or a paragraph.

A good thesis statement needs to do the following:

• Condense the main idea of your thesis into one or two sentences.
• Answer your project’s main research question.
• Clearly state your position in relation to the topic .
• Make an argument that requires support or evidence.

Once you have written down a thesis statement, check if it fulfills the following criteria:

• Your statement needs to be provable by evidence. As an argument, a thesis statement needs to be debatable.
• Your statement needs to be precise. Do not give away too much information in the thesis statement and do not load it with unnecessary information.
• Your statement cannot say that one solution is simply right or simply wrong as a matter of fact. You should draw upon verified facts to persuade the reader of your solution, but you cannot just declare something as right or wrong.

As previously mentioned, your thesis statement should answer a question.

If the question is:

What do you think the City of New York should do to reduce traffic congestion?

A good thesis statement restates the question and answers it:

In this paper, I will argue that the City of New York should focus on providing exclusive lanes for public transport and adaptive traffic signals to reduce traffic congestion by the year 2035.

Here is another example. If the question is:

How can we end poverty?

A good thesis statement should give more than one solution to the problem in question:

In this paper, I will argue that introducing universal basic income can help reduce poverty and positively impact the way we work.

• The Writing Center of the University of North Carolina has a list of questions to ask to see if your thesis is strong .

A thesis statement is part of the introduction of your paper. It is usually found in the first or second paragraph to let the reader know your research purpose from the beginning.

In general, a thesis statement should have one or two sentences. But the length really depends on the overall length of your project. Take a look at our guide about the length of thesis statements for more insight on this topic.

Here is a list of Thesis Statement Examples that will help you understand better how to write them.

Every good essay should include a thesis statement as part of its introduction, no matter the academic level. Of course, if you are a high school student you are not expected to have the same type of thesis as a PhD student.

Here is a great YouTube tutorial showing How To Write An Essay: Thesis Statements .

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Home > Photography > Photography Masters Theses

Photography Masters Theses

Graduate students in the Photography program develop visual and critical expertise through course work, seminars, independent studio work and critiques designed to provide a deep understanding of contemporary art practices and criticism. Working in personal studios, students have access to state-of-the-art technical facilities that allow for the exploration of film-based and digital photography, digital video and multimedia production.

In the final semester, MFA candidates focus on creating a comprehensive body of work under the guidance of a thesis committee. All Photography graduate students produce a thesis book that includes a written narrative and a body of visual work. They also participate in the RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition , a large-scale public show held annually.

Graduate Program Director: Brian Ulrich

These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License .

Theses from 2023 2023

Mistranslated , Hee Young Cha

In a Condition of No Light , Alana Perino

Coast to Coast , Zeyuan Ren

Garden Etiquette , Kai Wasikowski

Theses from 2022 2022

Rememory , Jonathan Mark Jackson

The great delusion , Beth Johnston

Mason & Dixon: History and Identity in the Borderlands , Drew Leventhal

Bewildering narrative , Ali Newhard

Dead Letter Room , Allie Tsubota

Theses from 2021 2021

Imaging "Interracial": performing racialized desire in "interracial" heterosexual hardcore pornography , Megan Christiansen

Becoming a precipice: the liminality of queer cruising , Chance DeVille

Wounds need air , Camilla Jerome

Martyr (in exile) , Xinyi Mei

I just can't get you out of my head : frenetic vortex, animal as image - field notes (1989-2021) , Steffanie A. Padilla

Fossil morphology , Leah Zhang

Theses from 2020 2020

The knots on the underside of the carpet , Lily Colman

Amor fati , Keavy Handley-Byrne

First sweet truth , Jessina Lynn Leonard

These inadvertent marks , Thomas Wilder

Make yourself at home , Han Seok You

Theses from 2018 2018

Between gods and animals : deconstructing heteronormative masculines pursuit to sustain power , Shawn Bush

Pretend power , Rosemary Engstrom

Theses from 2017 2017

Naturally occurring form , Margaret Kristensen

Theses from 2016 2016

Once there was there wasn't , Svetlana Bailey

Theses from 2015 2015

Mid- , Elise Kirk

The Void, The Mystery, The Vast Array, The Infinity of Unities, The Otherworld, The Absolute, The Hidden Order, The Randomness, The Infraworld, The Nothing, The Zone of Immaterial Sensibility, The Silence, The Hollow of Space, The Ineffable, The Emptiness, The Wild , Drew Ludwig

Theses from 2011 2011

Seven Seas Without , Ambereen Siddiqui

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