Identifying originals of analog and digital photographs

Gržina, Hrvoje. (2017). Identifying originals of analog and digital photographs. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Information Science.
(Poslijediplomski doktorski studij informacijskih i komunikacijskih znanosti) [mentor Stančić, Hrvoje].

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Abstract

The principal task of this dissertation – by broadening the starting point of archival theory with insights from diplomatics, conservation, photography theory, visual anthropology as well as anthropology of material culture, aesthethics and semiotics – is to explore and explain the problem of originals of analog and digital photographs and to offer clearly defined criteria for their determining and the distinguishing from objects of different status. In addition to the contribution to the studying of photographs in archives, the dissertation is also envisaged as an addition to a broader discourse of technical and social history of photography. Following introductory notes and an overview of principal terms as well as relevant foreign and domestic literature, the predominant part of the research is dedicated to the analysis and comparation of various forms of appearance of analog and digital photographs, as well as to possibilities and techniques of their direct duplicating and copying. Using the claims that photography as a medium in general is not meant solely for duplicating – as unique photographic objects also exist – and that the polarity of a photographic image has no influence on object's status as the starting point, a classification of photographs according to the generational distance from the object of reference has been suggested, following which a typology of photographs has been created. Earlier standpoints concerning the principal research question have been critically analyzed and the acceptance of a concept of multiple originals has been suggested, which has then been elaborated in detail, with particular emphasis on the form and the functional context of the creation of photographs as basic elements on which the meaning of photographic documents depends. With their foundations in the concept of multiple originals, criteria for differentiation between original photographs and those of different status (primarily drafts and copies) have been suggested, as well as an elaborate classification of analog and digital photographs according to originality. This enabled the positioning of each of original photographic objects within the corpus, those which are unique as well as those preserved in a greater number. The adoption of suggested criteria should raise the level of visual literacy of archivists and, implemented in practice, should help overcome the visual equivalence which is often established between photographs of different statuses, techniques, forms and generations.

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