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Photography
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What is Photography?

Photography sits at the intersection of technology, aesthetics, and cultural meaning, making it a compelling subject across disciplines including art history, media studies, visual culture, and communications. Students engage with it in courses ranging from studio arts to political science, precisely because the camera is never a neutral instrument. Photography raises fundamental questions about representation, truth, and power — whether a photograph documents reality or constructs it is a debate that runs through nearly every academic treatment of the medium. Its evolution from a nineteenth-century curiosity into a dominant global visual language gives it both historical depth and contemporary relevance.

The papers archived on this topic reflect a genuinely broad range of approaches. Some take a historical arc, tracing photography's power and influence across time. Others narrow to specific contexts, examining political photography, female identity and its construction through the photographic image, or the way photographs circulate and drive social engagement in online spaces. Comparative approaches appear as well, including arguments about whether photography and printmaking qualify as fine art, and analyses of photorealism in computer animation. Rhetorical and semantic angles are also present, exploring how images shape public opinion in digital media environments.

A strong essay on photography needs a focused, arguable thesis rather than a broad survey of the medium's history. Evidence drawn from specific images, photographers, or documented cultural moments carries more weight than general claims about what photographs do. Theoretical grounding — such as ideas about truth, representation, or identity — should connect directly to concrete visual examples. The most common pitfall is treating photographs as self-evident: always analyze how an image produces meaning rather than assuming that meaning is simply visible.

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Paper Undergraduate

Educational programs and empathy development in incarcerated populations

For Possible Outcome 2, two groups in a population have been subjected to different treatments. One group served as the control group and was not given the opportunity to engage in an educational program that featured…

Research Paper Masters

The simulacrum in postmodern culture and consumer imagery

This paper discusses the notion of a simulacrum, or a false form of representation that comes to seem more 'real' than the real thing or to dominate the real thing in the cultural landscape. Unlike a copy, the simulacrum originates before 'the thing itself.' A good example of a simulacrum is a false, idealized image of a perfect life in a magazine. Real people then strive to 'copy' and shape their lives based upon this false ideal.

Essay Doctorate

Race relations and American power in a mid-century photograph

In this photograph, the prominent motif is a flag of the United States. The lines on the metallic roof converge in linear perspective, drawing the viewer's eye to that flag. Based on the number of stars in the flag, the…

Paper Doctorate

Texture, place, and medium in Cartier-Bresson's photography

INTERVIEWER: I was very taken aback and exhilarated to see the intense use of texture in your work. I was surprised to see how much more significantly this characteristic of your work stands out when viewing it in person.

Paper Undergraduate

Photography, memory, and identity in Christopher Nolan's Memento

Based on the short story of his younger brother, Jonathan Nolan, Film Director and Screenwriter Christopher Nolan created the film Memento, released in 2000. Guy Pierce stars as the lead character, Leonard Shelby. The film is a highly non-linear, thriller film-noir mystery. Leonard Shelby was once a man who lived a humble, yet charmed life. He married the woman of his dreams; he lived in a lovely home. His occupation was in the insurance industry as an investigator. One particular case haunts him repeatedly, that of Sammy Jankis, a man who suffered memory loss as a result of an accident. Shelby did not believe in the man's condition and did not rule positively on his claim; Jankis' wife ultimately sacrifices her life in order to prove the truth—that her husband truly did suffer from memory problems. Their lives weigh heavily upon Shelby. The paper argues that Memento brings to light differences in perspective on the potential for photography upon identity and memory between Susan Sontag and bell hooks.

Paper Doctorate

Laura Mulvey's theory of visual pleasure and narrative cinema

Laura Mulvey's piece, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" is divided into three sections. The first section is the introduction, the next section is called "Pleasure in Looking: Fascination with the Human Form." The third section is called "Woman as Image, Man as Bearer of the Look," which is followed by a summary of the entire work. Mulvey makes numerous assertions in her work, but one of her primary intentions of "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" is to call serious, critical attention to the act of looking as part of the cinematic experience. She calls attention to three fundamental types of looking: the looking of the camera at the frame as it records the footage, the looking of the audience upon the screen, and the looking of the characters between and among each other within the frame. Mulvey proceeds to elaborate upon each time of looking and how the look functions as part of the cinematic experience as well as the connection between the types of looking within narrative cinema and the duplication of experienced gender stratifications in reality between men and women.

Essay Doctorate

Ansel Adams' black and white landscape photography of the American West

Born on the 20th of Feb 1902, Ansel Easton Adams was an American environmentalist and a great photographer. He is particularly known to the world as black and white landscape photography, who captured the American West in such a beautiful way that the legacy he left behind is unmatchable. Adams’ photographs of the Yosemite National Park are still reproduced on posters, calendars, as well as in books.

Research Paper Doctorate

History of communication

(with special reference to the development of the motorcycle)

Paper Undergraduate

Person-centered therapy and the challenge of dark humor in client communication

I would imagine that being a co-therapist for W.M. using person-centered or Rogerian technique would present some interesting difficulties. The first thought that occurs to me is instinctual: W.M.

Research Paper Doctorate

Observation and analysis of Shannon Bickford's mixed-media paintings at ArtReach

For my observation, I decided to visit the Fall Community ArtReach exhibit at the UC Center in Fresno. This exhibit featured new mixed-media paintings by Fresno artists Shannon Bickford, as well as others.

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