Additional Resources

FROM ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL

Timeline of digital photography

1950s: The history of digital photography begins in 1957 – Russell Kirsch produced the first digital image of his son. Working for the United States National Bureau of Standards, he created a rotating drum that allowed images to be scanned.
1960s: NASA begins to use digital signals to send images from the moon.; NASA uses a computer to manipulate/clean-up the images from the moon.; Eugene Lally writes about the theory of creating a digital photo sensor.
1970s: In 1972, Texas Instruments patented the first electronic camera that did not require film.; n 1975, Eastman Kodak created the prototype for the world’s first digital camera. Created by Steve Sasson, the device was never intended to be mass produced and used CCD image sensor technology.
1980s: In 1981, Sony produced the first consumer digital camera.; In 1986, Kodak created the first sensor that included megapixels.
1990s: In 1990, Kodak developed its photo CD system and the Kodak Professional Digital Camera System. Considered the first DSLR, the camera featured 1.3 megapixels.; In 1994, the Apple Quicktake 100 camera was the first able to connect to a home computer.; In 1999, Nikon released the Nikon D1.
2000s: In 2000, Fujifilm released the FinePix S1 Pro, the first consumer DSLR.; In 2001, Canon introduced the EOS-1D and entered the world of DSLR cameras.; In 2001, Sharp released the first camera phone, the J-SH04.

Since this point, almost month by month, technology has moved forward. Now consumer cameras are boasting sensors with upwards of 20 megapixels, and most mobile phones have cameras that are better by far than some cameras from 10 years ago.

Film, alternative processes and the aesthetic of analogue

One aspect of this shift to digital that was unexpected has been the interest in traditional and alternative processes. It seems that as making a quick, clean image becomes ever easier, people are finding a new satisfaction in traditional processes.

This goes beyond simply using an old film camera to include the aesthetic of analogue, imprinted onto the digital image. One only has to look at Instagram to see the appeal of this, with a wide array of filters that offer a synthesised analogue aesthetic at the tap of a finger.

As with the classic car enthusiast, perhaps the place of the film camera is to look lovely, and come out occasionally on a sunny day. However, there are plenty of photographers still working with film, for a variety of different reasons. These range from long-standing practice to a particular aesthetic sensibility. Even though working with film no longer makes sense for many aspects of photography, it is still possible to find those still working in this way.

Photography in the age of electronic imaging

In contemporary photographic practice, the digital debate is no longer one that stands apart from other areas of study. For this reason, the relevant chapter that appeared in previous editions of Photography: A Critical Introduction no longer appears in the fifth edition; the debates are now incorporated into the other chapters, as digital photography becomes just another means of making an image. The choice to work digitally is now not particularly different to other decisions of format facing the photographer.

We include the chapter here however, as a way to look at how digital photography developed, and how it was discussed at the time. In the final version of the chapter, in the fourth edition, Martin Lister debates whether there has been an impact at all.

“How the nature of photography has changed remains a matter of some debate, with conclusions ranging from the view that photography has become an archaic, if cherished, media form to a rather insouciant view that nothing has changed.”

(Martin Lister 2009: p. 313)

Photography in the Age of Electronic Imaging

Glossary

Glossary

abject In Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror the abject is associated with material that produces a reaction of horror because it threatens the distinction between subject and object or the boundary between self and other. Abject material can include bodily fluids, wounds, or corpses, and the horrified or repulsed responses these can produce in the viewer is not because of what they mean, since abjection is not to do with symbolic meaning, but to do with deep, primal and unconscious drives.

aesthetic Pertaining to perception by the senses, and, by extension, to the appreciation or criticism of beauty, or of art. Thus ‘aesthetics’ references the criteria whereby we judge a work of art. Such criteria primarily include formal conventions (composition, tonal balance, and so on). Aesthetic philosophy is concerned with principles for the appreciation of the beautiful, including the beautiful in art.

analogue A form of representation, such as a painting, a chemical photograph or video tape, in which the image is composed of a continuous variation of tone, light or some other signal. Similarly, a gramophone record is an analogue medium for reproducing sound or music. Analogue representation is based upon an unsegmented code while a digital medium is based upon a segmented one in which information is divided into discrete elements. The hands of a traditional (analogue) clock which continuously sweep its face, in contrast to a digital clock which announces each second in isolation, is a common example of the difference.

art Imagery created principally for exhibition in galleries, museums, or related contexts. In this book we use ‘Art’, to refer to ‘high art’ and related gallery and funding systems and institutions.

autographic A generic term applied to all of those processes – drawing and painting being the main ones – in which images are made by the action and coordination of the eye and hand, and without mechanical or electronic intervention. Autographic images are authored wholly by physical and intellectual skill, or as a general field of (artistic) practices.

carnivalesque A concept developed by the Russian theorist Bakhtin to describe the taste for crude laughter, bad taste, excessiveness (particularly of bodily functions) and offensiveness. It celebrates a temporary liberation from recognised rules and hierarchies and is tolerated because, once people have been allowed to let off steam, those norms can be re-established.

code Used here in the semiotic sense to refer to the way in which signs are systematically organised to create meaning – the Morse code is one simple example. Cultural codes determine the meanings conveyed by various cultural practices, say, the way people dress or eat their meals; photographic codes control the way meanings are conveyed in a photograph – for example, the details that give a news photograph its sense of authenticity, or a wedding photograph the right sort of dignity. Cultural codes are centrally examined in chapter 5.

See semiotics

commodity Something which is bought and sold. The most commonly understood forms of commodity are goods which have been manufactured for the marketplace, but within capitalism other things have also been commodified. Natural resources and human labour have also been metamorphosed into commodities.

commodity culture A term used to describe the culture of industrial capitalism. Within today’s culture everything, even the water we drink, has become a product to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Commodity culture also infers the naturalisation of this system to the extent that we cannot imagine another way of living.

construction The creating or forging of images and artefacts. In photography this particularly references the deliberate building of an image, rather than its taking from actuality, through staging, fabrication, montage and image-text. The term also reminds us of Soviet Constructivism in which the role of art in the building of a new social order was emphasised and industrial elements were often used as a basis for art. Through inversion, it also references theories of deconstruction.

deconstruction A radical poststructuralist theory, centred upon the work of French literary theorist Jacques Derrida, which investigates the complexity and, ultimately indeterminable, play of meaning in texts. Derrida’s focus is literary, but the analysis may be extended to the visual.

dialectics A method of enquiry premised on a logical mode of argument whereby a position is stated, it’s anti-thesis is also stated, and, through discussion, a synthesis is reached. It is important in art history as a means of accounting absorption of avant-garde movements and their influence on art practices.

discourse Circulation of an idea or set of ideas through imagery, speech or writing. Photography is one of the many media – including newspapers, books, conversation, television programmes, and so on – which constitute contemporary discourses.

See ideology

epistemology A branch of philosophy concerned to establish by what means knowledge is derived. It is concerned with questions such as what it is possible to know and asks how reliable knowledge can be. In the present context, questions can be asked about what kinds of knowledge images provide, and how they do it.

fantasies The term ‘fantasy’ usually refers to stories, daydreams and other fictions. It is sometimes distinguished from ‘phantasy’, which is a more technical term from psychoanalysis referring to unconscious processes. This book draws on both meanings, especially when discussing writers and photographers influenced by psychoanalytic thought.

See unconscious

fetishism The substitution of a part for the whole; or use of a thing to stand in for powerful but repressed forces. In Freudian theory fetishism refers to the displacement and disavowal of sexuality. Fascination or desire are simultaneously denied, and indulged through looking at an object or image which stands in for that which is forbidden. Thus a photographic image of a fragment of a woman’s body may stand in for woman as the object of sexual desire.

See objectification, psychoanalysis, voyeurism

formalism Prioritisation of concern with form rather than content. Focus on composition and on the material nature of any specific medium.

gaze This has become a familiar term to describe a particular way of looking at, perceiving and understanding the world. It was brought into currency by writers on cinema, concerned to analyse the response of the audience as voyeurs of the action on the screen. The voyeuristic gaze is used to describe the way in which men often look at women, as well as the way in which Western tourists look at the non-Western world. More recently, discussions have focused on the implications of a ‘female gaze’.

hegemony Dominance maintained through the continuous negotiation of consent by those in power in respect of their right to rule. Such consent is underpinned by the possibility of coercion.

See ideology

heuristic An educational strategy in which students (or researchers) are trained to find things out for themselves.

historicisation The process by which events or other phenomena are given a place in an historical narrative. Photography may be defined by the position that it occupies in a larger historical schema or an unfolding over time of technologies and practices.

identity A person’s identity is his or her sense of self and the different contexts within which that selfhood is constructed. It is never simple or coherent, nor is it stable as people, attitudes and understandings change over time in response to events and experiences. For example, the national identity into which one is born may well clash with the cultural identity of the community in which one chooses to live; or a gay identity, based on sexuality, may clash with a religious identity based on strict rules governing sexual behaviour.

ideology This term is commonly used in two differing but interconnected ways. In this book it is used primarily to refer to bodies of ideas which may be abstract, but which arise from a particular set of class interests. The term is also commonly used to refer to ideas which are illusory, whose purpose it is to mask social and economic relations which actually obtain. For instance, the idea that children need their mother at home (which was common in the 1950s) masked the economic relations of patriarchy whereby married women were rendered financially dependent upon their husbands.

index One of three kinds of sign defined by American semiotician, C.S. Peirce. The indexical sign is based in cause and effect; for example, a footprint in wet sand indicates or traces a recent presence. The other two types of sign are the iconic (that which is based in resemblance), and the symbolic, or sign proper (that which is entirely conventional).

indexicality This term refers to a cluster of qualities and ideas about photographs which are associated with their indexical nature (see index above), that is, with the manner in which a photograph can be understood to be a chemical trace or imprint, via the passage of light, of an existing (or once existing) physical object. By extension this links with ideas that photographs are closely related to memory, the past, presence and absence, and death. Also, that they are tangible evidence of a thing’s existence. A further meaning is that the ‘taking’ of a photograph can be thought of as ‘pointing’ to something in the world.

See semiotics

mimetic representation Based upon imitation, upon showing rather than telling, a concept central to traditional post-Renaissance art theory.

See representation

modernism In everyday terms ‘modern’ is often used to refer to contemporary design, media or forms of social organisation (as in ‘the modern family’). But ‘modern’ also frequently refers to the emphasis upon modernisation from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, and, more particularly, to Modern movements in art and design from the turn of the twentieth century. It is essentially a relative concept (modern by contrast with . . .); its precise usage depends upon particular contexts. In this book we distinguish between two terms: modernism, sets of progressive ideas in which the modern is emphasised and welcomed; and modernity, social, technological and cultural developments. The term ‘Modernism’ is used (in chapter 6) to refer to particular emphasis on form and materiality in modern art. Throughout the book a distinction is made between the modern, and the postmodern or contemporary.

See postmodern

objectification It is often argued that photography objectifies people by turning them into things or objects to be looked at, thereby disempowering them.

See voyeurism

ontological Ontology is a branch of philosophy. It concerns the study of how things exist and the nature of various kinds of existence. It involves the logical investigation of the different ways in which things of different types (physical objects, numbers, abstract concepts, etc.) are thought to exist.

the Other A concept used within psychoanalysis and identity theory, and within postcolonial theory, to signify ways in which members of dominant groups derive a sense of self-location and identity partly through defining other groups as different or ‘Other’. Thus, within patriarchy, the male is taken as the norm, and woman as ‘Other’; that is, not male. Similarly, in racist ideologies, whiteness is taken for granted, therefore blackness is seen as Other.

See identity, psychoanalysis

phenomenology A philosophical movement founded by Edmund Husserl in the early twentieth century in which the focus is on perception and consciousness, upon what the senses and the mind notice.

polysemic A property of signs is that they can have many meanings: their context and the interests of their readers. Hence captions, or words within the image, are frequently used to help anchor meaning.

positivism As is implied in the roots of the term itself, positivism stresses that which is definite or positive, i.e. factually based. Positivism, with its associated emphasis upon logical deduction and empirical research methods, including the social survey, is associated with the Victorian period in Britain, although its roots lie in earlier, eighteenth century philosophy.

postmodern Literally ‘after the modern’, the postmodern represents a critique of the limitations of modernism with its emphasis upon progress and, in the case of the arts, upon the materiality of the medium of communication. Philosophically, postmodernism has been defined as marking the collapse of certainty, a loss of faith in explanatory systems, and a sense of dislocation consequent on the global nature of communication systems and the loss of a clear relation between signs and their referents.

poststructuralist At its most simple, this means ‘after Structuralism’, also implying critical thinking that contests and goes beyond Structuralist theory and method, rejecting the idea that all meaning is fundamentally systematic. In this book it is used to refer to a group of theories which stress the way that the human ‘self’ and the meaning made of the world is constructed through the languages (including visual languages) which we use. Poststructuralist thinking challenges the idea that there is a fixed and stable human subject or that knowledge can be certain.

See identity, structuralism

private and public spheres We lead our lives within two relatively distinct modes, a ‘private’ sphere, which is made up of personal and kinship relations and domestic life, and a ‘public’ sphere, made up of economic relations, work, money-making and politics. The ‘private’ sphere tends to be controlled by moral and emotional constraints, the ‘public’ sphere by public laws and regulations. This distinction, although contested by feminist writers, and more recently by those interested to analyse the extensive media penetration within the domestic, underlies the way the terms ‘private’ and ‘public’ are used in this book (especially in chapter 3).

psychoanalysis The therapeutic method established by Sigmund Freud, which involves seeking access to traumatic experiences held in the unconscious mind.

See repression, unconscious

representation This refers to ways in which individuals, groups or ideas are depicted. Use of the term usually signals acknowledgement that images are never ‘innocent’, but always have their own history, cultural contexts and specificity, and therefore carry ideological implications.

repression Unpleasant or unwelcome thoughts, emotions, sensations are ‘repressed’ when they are forced into the unconscious. The phrase ‘the return of the repressed’ means that such emotions surface into the conscious world in different forms.

See psychoanalysis, unconscious

reproduction The production (by machine) of many identical copies. The process of mass production when applied, through photography, print technology, and electronic recording to the copying of visual images or music. As this process has become increasingly sophisticated, the reproduction of original works of art has reached a stage where the reproduction is, for almost all intents and purposes, as good as the original. Where it does not, and cannot, replace the original autographic work is in bearing the traces and marks of its maker. Such originals have been spoken of as having an ‘aura’ (Benjamin 1936) due to our sense of their being unique and of having a history. There are, broadly, two schools of thought about the impact of reproduction on original images. One deplores the ‘cheapening’ of unique originals through reproduction; the other celebrates the process as a way of democratising visual and aural culture. Whatever the case, photography is a technology which has reproducibility built in. A negative is produced precisely so as to be able to make infinite numbers of prints, each, in principle, being identical, and digital technologies are inherently reproduceable. The continuing phenomenon of the ‘artist’ photographer’s proof, or ‘original’ print, is therefore an ironic twist and an example of the political economy triumphing over technological determinations. In principle digital technology now renders distinctions between ‘original’ and ‘reproduction’ irrelevant.

scopophilia The human drive to look or observe; in Freudian theory the fundamental instinct leading to voyeurism.

See fetishism, voyeurism

semiology See semiotics

semiotics The science of signs, first proposed in 1916 by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, but developed in particular in the work of Roland Barthes (France) and C.S. Peirce (USA). Semiotics – also referred to as semiology – is premised upon the contention that all human communication is founded in an assemblage of signs – verbal, aural and visual – which is essentially systematic. Such sign systems are viewed as largely – or entirely – conventional; that is, consequent not upon ‘natural’ relations between words or images and that to which they refer, but upon arbitrary relations established through cultural convention. The sign proper has two aspects, signifier and signified. The signifier is the material manifestation, the word, or pictorial elements. The signified is a mental concept that is conventionally associated with the specific signifier. While separable for analytic purposes, in practice the signifier and the signified always go together.

See code

social and economic history History may be written in many ways. Economic history deals with changes in work patterns and the ways in which human societies have sustained themselves. Social history deals with the organisation of societies – marriage, education, child-rearing and the like. A history of photography is normally seen as part of art history or, more broadly, of the history of visual culture. In chapter 3 it is suggested that we can understand personal photography better if we consider it within a social and economic context. Chapter 5 takes the social and the economic as the primary context for understanding commercial uses of photography.

straight photography Emphasis upon direct documentary typical of the Modern period in American photography.

structuralism Twentieth-century theoretical movement within which stress is laid upon analysis of objects, cultural artefacts and communication processes in terms of systems of relations rather than as entities in themselves.

sublime That which is grand, noble or outstanding. In art the sublime is associated with awe, deep emotional response, and even pain. In landscape, the sublime relates to places where things run beyond human control, where nature is untameable. In his essay, ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful’ (1757), the English philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–97) placed discussion of the sublime ahead of that of the beautiful, suggesting that pain is a stronger emotional force than pleasure. Burke wanted to explore human fascination with the sublime, noting that if pain or danger are too imminent they are simply terrible, but if held at some distance, for instance, through photographic representation, they are pleasurable. This apparent paradox has excited much subsequent debate in relation to imagery, not the least within psychoanalysis.

technological determinism The proposition that technological invention alone determines new cultural formations. The notion has been criticised primarily on the grounds that new technologies arise from research enterprises driven largely by economic imperatives and perceived social or political needs. Technological developments may be seen as an effect of cultural desires as well as a major influence within cultural change.

teleology Arguments and explanations in which the nature of something is explained by the purpose or ‘end’ which it appears to have. In this view photography, and then cinema, may be understood as being caused by a human desire to achieve ever more comprehensive illusions of reality, and are assumed to be striving towards further future achievements.

unconscious In psychoanalysis, that which is repressed from the individual’s conscious awareness yet gives rise to impulses which influence our behaviour. Freud insisted that human action always derives from mental processes of which we cannot be aware.

See repression, psychoanalysis

voyeurism Sexual stimulation obtained through looking. In photography voyeurism refers to the image as spectacle used for the gratification of the (hitherto construed as male, heterosexual) spectator.

See fetishism, objectification, psychoanalysis

For a comprehensive definition and discussion of technical terms in chemical photography see:

GORDON BALDWIN AND JÜRGENS, MARTIN (1991) Looking at Photographs: A Guide to Technical Terms, Los Angeles, Getty Publications. Revised edition.

For fuller discussion of various contributions to twentieth-century debates, including Barthes, Benjamin, Foucault and Freud see:

JOHN LECHTE (1994) Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers, London: Routledge.

Photography Archives

Photography Archives

Web Resources

Web Resources

www.ctheory.net: An international journal of theory, technology and culture. Articles, interviews and key book reviews in contemporary discourse are published weekly as well as theorisations of major ‘event-scenes’ in the mediascape.
www.intute.ac.uk/artsandhumanities/: A searchable catalogue of internet resources internationally selected and catalogued by professional librarians in UK higher education (archived in 2011 but still accessible).
http://leonardo.info/leoinfo.html: An electronic journal dedicated to providing a forum for those who are interested in the convergence of art, science and technology. Includes: profiles of media arts facilities and projects; profiles of artists using new media; feature articles comprised of theoretical and technical perspectives; an on-line gallery exhibiting new media art.
www.photomonitor.co.uk: An online magazine focused on artists using lens-based media in the UK and Ireland. Contains essays, reviews, galleries as well as listings of exhibitions and events.
www.screeningthepast.com: An international electronic journal of visual media and history. Covers photography, film, television and multimedia.
http://blog.fotomuseum.ch/: A blog written by guest critics commissioned by Fotomuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland.
www.zonezero.com/: ZoneZero is dedicated to photography and its journey from the analogue to the digital world. It aims to carry an ongoing debate on all the issues surrounding the ‘representation of reality’ and other subjects relevant to the transition from analogue to digital image-making. It aims to promote an understanding of where, in the context of the digital age, the tradition of the ‘still image’ is headed. Carries extensive on-line exhibitions of photography. Has a special interest in Latin American work.
http://www.americansuburbx.com/: A good resource of photographic imagery, text and associated videos. Produced by Doug Rickard.
http://www.1000wordsmag.com/: An online magazine looking at contemporary photography. Includes articles, galleries and reviews.
http://cphmag.com/: A website/blog that includes essays and reviews on contemporary photography.
http://www.selfpublishbehappy.com/: A blog that looks at contemporary self-publishing and associated contemporary work.
http://newlandscapephotography.com/: A blog looking at contemporary landscape photography.
http://smbhmag.com/: An online magazine looking at new contemporary photography.
http://fotografiamagazine.com/: A blog and web resource looking at contemporary photography. Also contains exhaustive listings of grants, prizes and festivals.