Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Documentary Photography and the Edge of the Sword

Opal, Jack A.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1492608162938188

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, Art History (Fine Arts).
This thesis attempts to answer questions and concerns of Martha Rosler and Allan Sekula regarding documentary photography. Rosler wondered – decades ago, now – if documentary photography could ever supersede its benign liberal origins and become, in her own words, radical. Sekula feared our inattentiveness to the tool’s equal use by the state to repressive ends. By addressing the past preoccupations of the arch-documentarians, this thesis attempts to find the state of documentary and image-making in the contemporary. This paper consists of three parts: the first, which deals with the battle surrounding image-making in public as embodied by copwatching; the second, which more directly addresses the impact of cell phones on documentary, the decline of professional news photography, and the rise of a new subject-author; and the last, which considers the operation of the drone and the images it produces.
Louis-Georges Schwartz (Advisor)
Jennie Klein (Committee Chair)
Marilyn Bradshaw (Committee Member)
Art History
documentary photography; resistance; cell phone photography; drones; copwatching;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Opal, J. A. (2017). Documentary Photography and the Edge of the Sword [Master's thesis, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1492608162938188

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Opal, Jack. Documentary Photography and the Edge of the Sword. 2017. Ohio University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1492608162938188.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Opal, Jack. "Documentary Photography and the Edge of the Sword." Master's thesis, Ohio University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1492608162938188

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1492608162938188
1,210
© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.