This has been largely due to the
Digital Revolution, a term that will just as clearly define the present
historical period as the term Industrial Revolution defined the 19th Century.
Until comparatively recently,
photography was a very specific activity that used standardised materials and
equipment in a manner that was tightly controlled by the technical limitations
of those materials.
As a photographer, your role in
making photographs was generally limited to operating a camera with a greater
or lesser degree of proficiency. The outcome being a folder of finished prints
provided for you by technicians.
The prints could be saved and
stored, displayed or reproduced, but they generally had no other function than
to be a record or memento of specific people, places or events.
Any other outcome for the image was
also the province of technicians, using specialised equipment and materials
beyond the means of most photographers.
It was unthinkable that personal (as opposed to commercial) photographs would be
displayed, published or broadcast to an audience outside a personal network of
contacts.
In saying this, I seem to be
describing still images. My remarks apply equally to the even more dramatic
changes in the field of moving images with the move away from cine film to the
endlessly rewritable medium of digital video.
Photography is now much more than
an Arts and Crafts/Design activity or the medium by which we are informed or
entertained by old school media.
What do these changes to the way we
use photographic images mean for society and education?
Anyone who carries a mobile phone
is potentially able to instantly publish images or video at any time of the
night or day.
Given this, it's surely not
fanciful to suggest that photography has changed in that it has become a
commonplace medium of public discourse, akin to the spoken or written word.
It has become an intrinsic part of
the way we converse or express ourselves, and given its broadcastability,
beyond the confines of face to face interaction.
As educators, we need to recognise
and accommodate this changing role of photography. It can no longer be thought
of as merely another craft specialism within the confines of art and design.
It demands to be seen as a fully
academic subject that encompasses the study of it in terms of its role as both
a language form and as a technology that is radically modifying the forms of
public discourse.
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