Ridley Scott’s 1982 film, ‘Bladerunner‘
What are the benefits that photography provides in a digital world?
In a posting a while ago, I stated that,
Perhaps the only reason photography still has a place in contemporary visual culture and the digital world has more to do with its efficiency in delivering visual information than it does anything else.
I was playing the devil’s advocate here; I was basically asking the question of whether photography has any intrinsic merits that can’t be duplicated by other mediums. What I meant in that post is that when we arrive at a page or poster or whatever, we can glance at a photograph and immediately know a certain amount about the given subject. We are able to read this visual information almost immediately. And, to top it off, it’s relatively easy and cheap for an advertiser to put a photograph on a billboard or page and mass reproduce it.
Deeper and more complicated images require a longer look perhaps, but for the most part a cursory glance will do, which is not the case with text, which requires the attention and concentration of a few seconds (advertising copy) to days or months (a long novel), or video, which we must let play out at its own pace [which is a funny irony - the medium that has done so much to limit our attention spans is limited by the fact that it consumes so much of our attention].
But, for speculation’s sake, imagine a world where a technology has developed that delivers the same kind of information at an equal brisk pace. What then for photography? I think that day is probably very very far away, and when it comes photography will probably go the way of other obsolete mediums, fetishized and (if it’s lucky) relegated to a marginal role in contemporary culture. But that’s kind of besides the point. My question could really be expressed as what elements of photography are inherent to the medium and cannot be found anywhere else or in any other medium? What would allow photography to carve out it’s own niche indefinitely, however marginal? What is it that makes photography special?
This is a question we all ask, in one way or another, while looking at images. I’m going to try and puzzle out some of my own thoughts on this question (in a cursory fashion) over the next week or two on this blog. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, whatever, in the comment section of the applicable posts…
good site xaisec
I’ll check back to to see where you take this for sure.
For clarity sake, it might be nice to hear what your definition of Photography is. Hypothetically speaking if there was a new technology developed that delivers the same kind of information at an equal brisk pace, than wouldn’t the image makers adapt?
I would assume that the same elements that make any image interesting would still apply in this new medium. To make an image with a device that captures what’s in front of it I would imagion would always be necessary or desired. If the device were to change as it has from the first Camera Obscura to what we now use, wouldn’t it be made easy enough to use that essentially people with the same skills would still be drawn to it.
THX,
Adam
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