Tracing the afterlife of iconicphotographs using IPTC

Martijn KleppeSlides on Slideshare: bit.ly/iconicphoto

@martijnkleppe

Charlie Cole, Newsweek – World Press Photo of the Year 1989

Nick Ut, AP – World Press Photo of the Year 1972

Icons

Composition

ArchetypeUnique & Generique

Often Published

Variations

Emotions

Meaningclear

SymbolicMeaning

Meaningchanges

Outline

6

1. Find images that are often published

2. Find images which meaning has changed over time

3. Lessons learned

4. Hopes for the future

1. Often published

7

• Which identical photos are published most often?

• 400 Dutch History textbooks

• Dataset of ~ 5.000 photographs

• Analyzed on 41 variables (f.e. name person & topic)

• IPTC to structure dataset

1. Often published - IPTC

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International Press Telecommunications Council

1. Often published - IPTC

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International Press Telecommunications Council

1. Often published - IPTC

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Advantages for photographers:

- Code multiple images at once

- All information in 1 file- All software can read

information in the file- Easy to transfer

Advantages for academics:

- Code multiple images at once

- All information in 1 file- All software can read

information in the file- Easy to transfer (& share)

- Find images easier- Export all data

1. Often published – My case

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• Which photos are published most often in 400 Dutch History textbooks?

• Locate photos in History textbooks

• Digitize them & add them to Fotostation Pro

• Code all images & add values in IPTC fields

Fotostation Pro

1. Often published – My case

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• Export data variables (f.e. topics) to SPSS

• Create frequency lists topics

• Which topics are most frequent?

• Manually go over most frequent topics to find most published photographs

Icons

Composition

ArchetypeUnique & Generique

Often Published

Variations

Emotions

Meaningclear

SymbolicMeaning

Meaningchanges

2. Changing Meaning

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• Back to Fotostation Pro to easily find photographs of Troelstra:

2. Changing Meaning

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• Go over the captions provided in the history textbooks

1912?

or

1918?

3. Lessons Learned

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• IPTC was useful & efficient

• Manual labor remained necessary & typos will happen

• Does the most frequent topic also contain the most published identical photo?(Spoiler alert: NO! )

• How to describe photographs?Do we all see the same thing in images?Do we all use the same words to describe images?

“Universal suffrage, Portrait”

“Political parties, social-democracy the Netherlands”

“Protestphoto”

3. Lessons Learned

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• IPTC was useful & efficient

• Manual labor remained necessary & typos will happen

• But does the most frequent topic also contain the most published identical photo?(Spoiler alert: NO! )

• How to describe photographs?Do we all see the same thing in images?Do we all use the same words to describe images?

• Semantic Gap

3. Lessons learned

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“The semantic gap characterizes the

difference between two descriptions of an

object by different linguistic

representations, for instance languages or

symbols.”

Smeulders, 2000

4. Hopes for the future

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• How to overcome or avoid the semantic gap?

• Image recognition

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lexalizer/id374904872?mt=8

4. Hopes for the future

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4. Hopes for the future

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4. Hopes for the future

http://mw2013.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/where-do-images-of-art-go-once-they-go-online-a-reverse-image-lookup-study-to-assess-the-dissemination-of-digitized-cultural-heritage/

4. Hopes for the future

Let me create my dataset of photos (with IPTC)

Apply image recognition to: Show me similar photos in 1 dataset

RQ: which photos are used most often?+ No more manual checking

Let me upload 1 photo and find all similar photos RQ: how did the meaning of the photo change over time?+ No dependency of words

Applicable for other research questions:Show me all newspapers that contain the photo of Troelstra

Questions?

Martijn Kleppe

kleppe@eshcc.eur.nl

www.martijnkleppe.nl

@martijnkleppe

LiteratureFinnegan, C.A.: “What is this a picture of? Some Thoughts on Images and

Archives”, In:Rethoric & Public Affairs 9, 116 – 123 (2006). Grijsen, C.: “In perspectief: behoud en beheer van born-digital fotoarchieven” (In

perspective: conservation and management of born-digital photo archives). In: FotografischGeheugen 75, 24 – 26. (2012).

Kleppe, M.: Canonieke Icoonfoto’s. De rol van (pers)foto’s in de Nederlandsegeschiedschrijving (Canonical Iconic Photographs: The role of (press) photos in Dutch Historiography). Eburon, Delft (2013a).

Kleppe, M.: Foto’s in Nederlandse Geschiedenisschoolboeken (FiNGS) (Photos in Dutch History textbooks) http://www.persistent-identifier.nl/?identifier=urn:nbn:nl:ui:13-l37n-bi( 2013b).

Kleppe, M.: “Wat is het onderwerp op een foto? De kansen en problemen bij het opzetten van een eigen fotodatabase” (What is the subject of a picture? The opportunities and difficulties in setting up their own photo database). In: Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis 293 – 107 (2012).

Reser, G., & Bauman, J.: “The Past, Present, and Future of Embedded Metadata forthe Long-Term Maintenance of and Access to Digital Image Files”. In: International Journal of Digital Library Systems (IJDLS), 3(1), 53-64 (2012).

Smeulders, Arnold W. M. e.a., “Content-Based Image Retrieval at the End of the Early Years”, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 22, 1349 – 1380 (2000).

Terras, M. M., and I. Kirton. “Where do images of art go once they go online? A Reverse Image Lookup study to assess the dissemination of digitized cultural heritage.” Selected papers from Museums and the Web North America, 237 – 248 (2013) .