Ubiquitous Photography E-Book

Martin Hand

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: DMS - Digital Media and Society
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 345

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The rise of digital photography and imaging has transformed the landscape of visual communication and culture. Events, activities, moments, objects, and people are ‘captured' and distributed as images on an unprecedented scale. Many of these are shared publicly; some remain private, others become intellectual property, and some have the potential to shape global events. In this timely introduction, the ubiquity of photography is explored in relation to interdisciplinary debates about changes in the production, distribution, and consumption of images in digital culture.

Ubiquitous Photography provides a critical examination of the technologies, practices, and cultural significance of digital photography, placing the phenomenon in historical, social, and political-economic context. It examines shifts in image-making, storage, commodification, and interpretation as highly significant processes of digitally mediated communication in an increasingly image-rich culture. It covers debates in social and cultural theory, the history and politics of image-making and manipulation, the current explosion in amateur photography, tagging and sharing via social networking, and citizen journalism. The book engages with key contemporary theoretical issues about memory and mobility, authorship and authenticity, immediacy and preservation, and the increased visibility of ordinary social life.

Drawing upon a range of sources and original empirical research, Ubiquitous Photography provides a comprehensive introduction to critical academic debate and concrete developments in the field of digital photography. It is essential reading for students and scholars interested in media and society, visual culture, and digital technology.

Leseprobe

Ubiquitous Photography

Digital Media and Society

Nancy Baym, Personal Connections in the Digital Age

Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, YouTube

Mark Deuze, Media Work

Charles Ess, Digital Media Ethics

Alexander Halavais, Search Engine Society

Martin Hand, Ubiquitous Photography

Robert Hassan, The Information Society

Tim Jordan, Hacking

Leah Lievrouw, Alternative and Activist New Media

Rich Ling and Jonathan Donner, Mobile Communication

Donald Matheson and Stuart Allan, Digital War Reporting

Zizi A. Papacharissi, A Private Sphere

Jill Walker Rettberg, Blogging

Patrik Wikström, The Music Industry

Ubiquitous Photography

MARTIN HAND

polity

Copyright © Martin Hand 2012

The right of Martin Hand to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2012 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5667-0

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset in 10.25 on 13 pt Scala

by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Group Limited, Bodmin, Cornwall

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.politybooks.com

Contents

Detailed Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

1    

Ubiquitous Photography: A Short Introduction

2    

Visual Culture, Consumption and Technology

3    

Images and Information: Variation, Manipulation and Ephemerality

4    

Technologies and Techniques: Reconfiguring Camera, Photographer and Image

5    

Memory and Classification: Between the Album and the Tag Cloud

6    

Conclusion: Ubiquitous Photography and Public Culture

References and Bibliography

Index

Detailed Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

1    

Ubiquitous Photography: A Short Introduction

Personal and ubiquitous photographies

Photography and digitization

A note on method

Overview

2    

Visual Culture, Consumption and Technology

Introduction

Modernity, visibility and transparency

Capitalism, commodification and consumption

Networks, technologies and practices

Concluding remarks

3    

Images and Information: Variation, Manipulation and Ephemerality

Introduction

What is a photograph? Materiality and meaning

Reproduction and variation

Manipulation and authenticity

Ephemerality and durability

Concluding remarks

4    

Technologies and Techniques: Reconfiguring Camera, Photographer and Image

Introduction

Technologies, expectations and skills

The rise of the digital camera

The redistribution of photographic agency

Convergent systems and devices

Concluding remarks

5    

Memory and Classification: Between the Album and the Tag Cloud

Introduction

Photography, memory and classification

Family albums, social cohesion

Distribution: sharing photos and the politics of tagging

Concluding remarks

6    

Conclusion: Ubiquitous Photography and Public Culture

Photography and social change

Archiving, sending and sharing

Confessional culture, or, how to live publicly

References and Bibliography

Index

List of Figures

1.1    

Camera wars

1.2    

Abu Ghraib image circulation

3.1    

Photoshop manipulation

3.2    

Capturing the mundane

4.1    

Camera evolution

4.2    

Apple Quick Take, 1994

4.3    

Geotagging camera

5.1    

Scrapbooking

5.2    

Flickr classifications

5.3    

Flickr tagging and commenting

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) in supporting this research during 2006–2010. Particular thanks go to research assistants Ashley Scarlett, Sonja Solomun, Kelly Reid, Jennifer Harrington, Kimberley DeWolff and Jessica Grimaldi. I offer thanks to all participants and experts I have encountered in Library and Archives Canada, National Gallery of Canada, George Eastman House, whose help went way beyond what I might have expected. Sincere thanks to all those anonymous interviewees for sparing their time in explaining their diverse engagements with film and digital photography, the substance of which forms the rationale for this book.

I still owe a favour to Brian Woods, Paul Rosen, David Skinner and Andrew Webster for enabling me to get into this area. I am very grateful for the insights of Barry Sandywell, Elizabeth Shove, Joan Schwartz, Sergio Sismondo, Leah MacFadyen, Danielle Robichaud, Tara Milbrandt, Susan Salhany and graduate students in SOCY931. I would like to thank Victoria Millious and two anonymous readers for their helpful suggestions.

Some elements of the chapters have been presented in different forms at the Kingston Photographic Society, Kingston, Ontario, 2007; the McGill University Department of Art History and Communications Speaker Series, Montreal, 2008; the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association Annual Conference, University of British Columbia, 2008; the Feeling Photography Conference, the Toronto Photography Seminar and the Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Toronto, 2008; the Society for Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, 2009; the Technoscience Salon, University of Toronto, 2010; and the British Sociological Association Annual Conference, London School of Economics, 2011.

Many thanks to the enormous patience, skill and encouragement of Andrea Drugan and colleagues at Polity in allowing me to take somewhat longer than anyone anticipated.

Unreserved thanks as always to my wonderful family, whose generosity is immeasurable.

The publishers gratefully acknowledge the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: Page 10, © Jen Grantham/ iStockphoto.com; 13, © Ron Haviv/VII/Corbis; 71, © Laurel Friedman; 90, Creative Commons Kalleboo; 108, Creative Commons Tom Photos; 110, Creative Commons Jaqian; 118, Creative Commons Yellow Shark; 169, 179, © Andrea Drugan.

CHAPTER ONE

Ubiquitous Photography: A Short Introduction

Over the last two decades digital images have become ubiquitous aspects of daily life in advanced capitalist societies. The rise of digital photography as an ordinary practice has trans-formed the landscape of visual communication and culture: events, activities, moments, objects and people are ‘captured’ and distributed as images on an unprecedented scale. Alongside dramatic changes in the relative dominance of the photographic, computer and telecommunications industries and the use of digital images in journalism, art, tourism, archives and medicine, people routinely make and store thousands of digital photos recording the eventful and the mundane. Many of these are distributed by email or through web applications such as Flickr and Facebook, producing searchable archives of everyday minutiae. Others remain in private collections, albums and traditional modes of display and viewing. Some become intellectual property or commodities, while others assume the potential to shape global events. It is hard to imagine any aspect of contemporary life that has not become visual content, as communications and social relations are increasingly mediated through or accompanied by digital images. The weaving of photographies – as images and ideas, as devices and techniques, and as practices – into every corner of contemporary society and culture produces quite a different scenario from that envisaged during the late twentieth century. Where many once imagined a future of digital simulation and virtual reality, we now arguably have the opposite: the visual publicization of ordinary life in a ubiquitous photoscape.

This book examines the current pervasiveness of still photography and imaging in relation to academic debates about digital culture. The simple observation framing it is that we are witnessing the death of film but the proliferation of photographies. This is true in terms of the disappearance of film manufacturing and processing, the production of film cameras, the availability of darkrooms, and the use of film in anything other than specialist domains or niche communities of practice. Since 1999, there has been a decline in the number of film-based photographs and a dramatic growth in the creation of images using digital cameras. For example, in 2002 there were 27.5 million digital still cameras purchased worldwide, compared with 63 million analogue (film-based) cameras (Lyman and Varian 2003). Worldwide shipments of digital cameras increased to 119 million in 2008 and, at the time of writing, are projected to be 120 million in 2011, while film cameras have all but disappeared ( 2011).