MAC 325 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Ephemerality, Digital Photography, Kodak
26 Jun 2018
School
Department
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Professor
Week 13, Lecture 1
4/24/18: Ubiquitous Photography
● Building a theme
● How have the affordances of digital media extended cultural norms related to images
(today) and video (next lecture)?
● In the digital age, visual media is a way that we can express ourselves that augments or
extends oral/print culture and spoken/written word online
● Analog vs digital
● Cultural history of Photography
○ 1840s
■ Earliest devices that capture still images
■ Limited to the rich
○ 1880s
■ Amateur photographers emerge
■ Recreational amateurs
● Take photos for fun
● Record life events or milestones
■ Serious amateurs
● Using cameras/photography to emulate art and work done by
professionals
○ Early 20th century
■ Kodak markets cameras to everyone which propagates camera use
■ Recreational amateur photography begins taking over serious amateur
photography
○ 1950s
○ 1970s-1990s
○ 2000s
● The challenges of pre-digital photography
○ Shooting pictures
■ Requires more upfront knowledge on how to compose images
○ Development
○ Storage
○ Sharing
● Digital photography
○ “Ubiquitous photography”
■ Cameras are everywhere and easy to use
■ Everyone is a photographer whether or not they want to be
■ Changing nature of photography
■ Collapse of serious and amateur recreational photographers
■ Our culture is more visual and photographic than it used to be
○ Images become more everyday
○ New affordances
■ Instant feedback on what a photo looks like
Document Summary
In the digital age, visual media is a way that we can express ourselves that augments or extends oral/print culture and spoken/written word online. Using cameras/photography to emulate art and work done by professionals. Kodak markets cameras to everyone which propagates camera use. Recreational amateur photography begins taking over serious amateur photography. Requires more upfront knowledge on how to compose images. Cameras are everywhere and easy to use. Everyone is a photographer whether or not they want to be. Collapse of serious and amateur recreational photographers. Our culture is more visual and photographic than it used to be. Instant feedback on what a photo looks like. Unlimited chances to take a perfect shot. Sharing photos is part of performing the self over networks. The changing social nature of photography in the digital age. Photographs are more immediate but also more disposable. More about preservation than stopping loss or nostalgia. Easier than ever to share photos with large networks.
