photography as new media: from the camera obscura to the camera

PHOTOGRAPHY AS
NEW MEDIA:
FROM THE CAMERA OBSCURA
TO THE CAMERA PHONE.
Senior Lecturer Richard Vickers
University of Lincoln,
Hull School of Art and Design, UK.
[email protected]
Transitions from silver to silicon to the semantic web:
The origins of photography can be traced back to the
invention of the camera obscura, an optical device
used by artists in the 16th century, although
knowledge of the principle goes back to antiquity. It
wasn’t until the early 19th century that Nièpce,
Daguerre & Fox Talbot managed to fix an image by
chemical means that established the practice of
photography that would record and shape history for
the next 160 years. I first wrote about the demise of
‘traditional’ photography some 10 years ago, and at
that time the transition from ‘silver to silicon’ was
generating a lot of academic interest. In his 1994
book, The Reconfigured Eye, William J. Mitchell,
Professor of Architecture and the Arts at MIT, stated:
We can identify certain historical moments at which
the sudden crystallisation of a new technology
(such as painting, printing, photography or
computing) provides the nucleus for new forms of
social and cultural practice and marks the
beginning of a new era of artistic exploration. The
end of the 1830s – the moment of Daguerre and
Fox Talbot – was one of these. And the opening of
the 1990s will be remembered as another – the
time at which the computer processed digital image
began to supersede the image fixed on silverbased photographic emulsion 1.
1
2
3
4
Mitchell proposed that the end of the twentieth
century was the end of photography, at least as we
had known it:
Thus late in the century of Joyce and Borges, of
cubism and surrealism, of Wittgenstein’s loss of
faith in logical positivism and of post-structuralism’s
gonzo metaphysics, the production of reproduction
was again redefined. From the moment of its
sesquicentennial in 1989 photography was dead –
or, more precisely, radically and permanently
displaced – as was painting 150 years before.2
16 years later photography’s transition from an
analogue to digital process is largely complete,
however, 2006 may be seen as the year when
photography is once again being redefined. The
exponential technological change that has occurred
since 1994 has been beyond anyone’s expectations,
back then the web was still in its infancy, and digital
cameras were either extremely expensive for a
professional model, or little more than a novelty for
the early consumer versions. The first ‘digital camera’
was invented at Kodak in 1975 by Steven Sasson,
this was a 0.1 megapixel camera that weighed nearly
4 kilos. It was to be another 15 years before
technology caught up with the concept. Kodak
introduced the Professional Digital Camera System
(DCS) in 19913 and released a professional 1.3
megapixel camera based on a Nikon F3 in that year
and digital photography as we know it today had truly
arrived. This camera was extremely expensive even
by today’s standards, with a retail price at the time of
£13,000 (YTL21,000 or _19,000) which was
prohibitive to even professional photographers and
way beyond the reach of the amateur.
Apple released one of the first consumer digital
cameras in 1994, the Apple Quicktake 1004 which
could take 8 so called ‘high-resolution’ 640 x 480
images, before the user had to download the files
from the 1MB non-removable flash memory to a
William Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye – Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era, MIT Press, 1994. Pg 20.
Ibid.
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/kodakHistory/1990_1999.shtml
QuickTake Digital Camera: http://www.haystack.mit.edu/computing/camera.html
computer. Interestingly the camera was actually
manufactured by Kodak who didn’t release their own
branded consumer ‘point-and-shoot’ digital camera
until the following year, 95 years after they introduced
the first successful consumer camera; the Brownie
box. The Brownie opened up photography to the
masses, a consequence of which was that the
snapshot entered popular culture.
Over the last few years the major photographic
companies have undergone or are still undergoing a
paradigm shift from analogue to digital, indeed it
appears that some aspects of the industry were
perhaps surprised by the exponential growth in the
digital camera market. Konica, the company that
made Japan’s first colour film, announced earlier this
year5 that it is closing its camera and film operations
and laying off nearly 4000 workers. All the major
players have undergone a reduction in film camera
output, including Nikon, who are now reducing their
production of film cameras to one model. Cannon the
worlds largest manufacturer of digital cameras, is
now believed to have prepared its total withdrawal
strategy from the 35mm market.6
Despite their early involvement in digital camera
development, Kodak stayed loyal to their traditional
market for as long as possible, maybe too long as
they lost their dominant position in the US market for
a while. They have been keen to make up the lost
ground and have fully embraced new media
technology. Amongst the many digital services that
they provide, Kodak now offer an online photo
sharing feature; Kodak Easy Share Gallery, where
users can upload images from their digital camera or
camera phone directly to their gallery on the web.
Prints can be ordered from the site or users can
simply email their friends and relatives a link directly
to their personal online gallery.
Online digital photography sharing sites have
become very popular over the last couple of years
5
6
7
Image 1
and the most popular of these is Flickr.com (see
image 1) which was started in 2004 and has enjoyed
tremendous success ever since. Flickr hosts more
than 37 million photographs and has over 1.2 million
members7 and last year was bought by the search
engine company Yahoo. An interesting aspect of
Flickr is the ability for the user to add a keyword ‘tag’
to their photograph, other users can search for
images of a specific nature by their tag or they are
able to view the most popular tags. Flickr created the
first tag cloud or visual depiction of content, this is
displayed in alphabetical order and the most popular
tags are depicted by using a larger font. (see image
2) Flickr is cited as a prime example of the effective
use of folksonomy, the collaboratively generated,
open ended labelling system that allows users to
categorise content. Folksonomy may hold the key to
developing the semantic web, in which every web
page contains machine-readable metadata that
describes the pages content and so would
dramatically improve search engine retrieval.
Flickr, blogs and social networking sites such as
Myspace.com embody the principles of the web 2.0,
a move away from static sites and towards a more
dynamic, interactive and collaborative web. Myspace
is a phenomenal success, a personal space on the
Hoyle, B & Lewis, L, ‘Film camera is killed off by millions of pixels’, The Times, 2nd March 2006, P. 12.
Ibid.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4201438.stm
web as a supporting medium for their main business,
adding extra value features such as ‘behind the
scenes’ footage. In the UK, Channel 4 in conjunction
with production company Endemol were expeditious
in tapping into these newly available revenue
streams, charging users £1.99 (YTL4.75 or _3.00) for
a 24 hour ‘pass’ or £7.99 (YTL18.95 or _11.50) for a
‘series pass’, to access 24 hour video streams and
video clip highlights from the Big Brother programme
online. In a recent move the BBC has made its TV
programmes available on the internet for seven days
after been broadcast. (See image 3)
Image 2
web where users can create private communities and
share photographs, journals and interests. At the
time of writing Myspace.com is the 7th highest
ranking website8 in terms of traffic in the world,
generating more traffic than internet giants Ebay and
Amazon. Myspace was bought last year by media
mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation for more
than £332 million (YTL758 million or _459 million).
Microsoft have added a similar feature to their
popular MSN service with MSN Space where users
can create a ‘personal’ space with a blog and picture
upload and sharing facility. They can also add photos
and content to the blog direct from their mobile phone
and in a recent deal have linked up with mobile
network 3 to provide bloggers with access to mobile
TV and video sharing tools. MSN has signed a three
month deal with 3 to create a branded online space
where users can submit clips the most popular of
which will win cash prizes. Users will also be able to
access SeeMeTV 3’s mobile TV channel, which
shows and pays for customer created content.
The mobile lifestyle device for the digital era:
Television production was quick to embrace the new
digital production & post-production technologies and
has already made the transition from the ‘old’
analogue media to ‘new’ digital media. UK TV
channels were also quick of the mark to utilise the
8
Image 3
The TV channels have also been quick to utilise
advances in mobile phone technology, Channel 4
provides mobile portals for Big Brother and other
popular series’ and the BBC have fully embraced this
emergent new medium. The BBC provide web sites
for WAP enabled phones and provides free* mobile
content (*at point of access, but service provider
costs are still incurred) and closing programme
credits often end with a 6 digit text number to access
extra content for mobiles. The content covers a broad
range including 3gp video programme ‘tasters’, news
headlines, sports updates, entertainment and
highlights. New developments include the ability to
view selected clips from the video diaries series
Video Nation via a 3G enabled phone and we can
Hoyle, B & Lewis, L, ‘Film camera is killed off by millions of pixels’, The Times, 2nd March 2006, P. 12.
expect to see a lot more 3G content as the uptake
increases. (See image 4)
Image 4
Mobile service providers have made a extremely
heavy investment in 3G infrastructure and are
obviously keen to exploit any new revenue streams
possible in hopes of gaining a return on investment.
One of the leading service providers Vodaphone
made an investment of some £14.7 billion (YTL35
billion or _21.25 billion) worldwide for 3G licences, £6
billion (YTL14.3 billion or _8.67 billion) of that in the
UK alone. Vodaphone were the first UK mobile
network to deliver Sky Mobile TV, subscribers can
watch a wide variety of popular channels on their 3G
mobile phone. Orange are another mobile network to
offer mobile TV and Orange TV currently offers
subscribers 16 mobile TV channels. Whether users
really want to watch TV content on their phones
remains to be seen, however the industry certainly
sees it as ‘the next big thing’. At Milia/MipTV in
Cannes last year, video and TV content for mobiles
was the dominant theme for the marketplace, with
interactive TV content for mobiles being touted as the
next ‘killer application’.
Whilst service providers are naturally keen to recoup
some of their major investment in 3G, hand-set
manufacturers have focussed on other features,
particularly cameras and the ability to store and play
music in MP3 format. With the incredible success of
products such as Apples iPod in recent years and the
relatively cheap cost and small size of flash memory,
Walkman type phones are now developed and sold
by all the major handset manufacturers. Motorola
were the first to develop and release a phone with
Apples iTunes software installed, the ROKR was
much hyped as the first iPod phone, after a great deal
of excitement and anticipation had been built up in
the pre-release phase, the phone was generally not
well received by the general public and was relatively
unsuccessful in the UK.
Sony Ericsson have been more successful with their
‘Walkman’ branded phones and have sold some 5.5
million Walkman phones since their launch in August
2005, equivalent to 16 per cent of total shipments
since then. The W800i which can store up to 1GB on
Sony’s propriety Memory Stick Pro Duo, the W950i
due out in August 2006 will have 4GB of storage
capacity, enough space for a 1000 MP3 songs.
Although this may not challenge the considerable
60GB of storage available on the iPod, handset
manufacturers are expected to release phones with
hard drives in the near future. At the moment phones
tend to be used as storage and playback devices for
music that has been downloaded via a PC and then
transferred, service providers are surely keen to
exploit the music download market further by having
users download direct to their phone.
Sony Ericsson are also keen to exploit or utilise the
well established Sony digital camera ‘Cyber-shot’
brand, for their new generation of camera phones;
the K790 and K800 due to be released in June 2006.
There is very little difference in the two phones,
however the k800 is a 3G phone whilst the K790
utilises EDGE technology. (See image 5) They both
feature a 3.2 mega-pixel camera, with auto-focus,
xenon flash and a completely new feature developed
by Sony Ericsson is BestPic, which ensures that you
never ‘miss’ an important picture. Press the shutter
button once and get 9 full quality 3.2 megapixel
pictures to choose from in a time sequence – 4
pictures before and 4 pictures after the actual image
you captured. All 9 pictures are displayed as icons on
the display. Simply scroll backwards and forwards
through the 9 images and save the ones you like
best. Discussing the new range of phones, Rikko
Sakaguchi, Senior Vice President, Product &
"We are seeing exponential growth in blogging and
consumers are turning more and more often to the
Internet as a means of sharing information or
images in personal blogs”. “By working with
Google, we're able to offer a quick and easy way
for people users to blog as they discover how
convenient it is as a way to share words and
pictures with friends, family and beyond. We are
also delighted to collaborate with Google, the
undisputed leader in Web Search, to provide our
end users with relevant internet information directly
to their Sony Ericsson handsets."11
Image 5
Application Planning at Sony Ericsson said;
"With the Cyber-shot phone we aim to create a new
lifestyle of ‘imaging communication’ by combining
Sony Ericsson’s unique mobile applications and
Sony digital imaging technologies. Our aim has
always been to innovate and create new values for
the mobile life, and with the Cyber-shot phone we
will enable anyone to enjoy an entirely new level of
communication–taking quality pictures of anything,
anytime and anywhere, and sharing their precious
moments with others." 9
As well as all the usual features a modern consumer
expects from a mobile phone, the new Sony Ericsson
phones are I believe the first to feature a direct ability
to blog your pictures. In a unique deal with Google, 10
new generation Sony Ericsson phones will not only
feature the web search engine as standard in all new
internet-capable phones, but also Google’s Blogger.
Commenting on this, Jan Wäreby, Corporate
Executive Vice President, Head of Sales & Marketing
at Sony Ericsson said;
The strong consumer demand for camera and
Walkman phones has helped Sony Ericsson record a
doubling of profits for the first quarter of 2006, pre-tax
profit for the January to March period was £104
million (YTL245m or _150m), up from £48 million
(YTL115m or _70m) for the same period last year.
Sales were £1.37 billion (YTL3.25b or _1.99b) up
from £892 million (YTL2.11b or _1.29b) a year
earlier. Another important aspect for the growth in the
market sector is that consumers are keen to have the
latest phone as fashion accessory and not only for
function.
The Citizen Journalist:
The digital era has given rise to a boom in citizen
journalism and the web has created an
unprecedented egalitarian platform for ordinary
citizens to play an active role in the process of
reporting and disseminating news, especially with the
recent popularity of the web blog. (see image 6) The
term web blog was first coined by Jorn Barger in
1997 and this was shortened to simply blog in 1999
by Peter Merholz. There were perhaps hundreds of
blogs by the end of the 1990s, today the estimate is
thought to be over 35 million12 and a new blog is
created every second13. Although it is difficult to pin
Rikko Sakaguchi, Senior Vice President, Product & Application Planning Sony Ericsson:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=gb&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pc3_1_1&zone=pc&lm=pc3&prid=4919
10
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=2647
11
Jan Wäreby, Corporate Executive Vice President, Head of Sales & Marketing at Sony Ericsson:
http://www.sonyericsson.com/spg.jsp?cc=gb&lc=en&ver=4000&template=pc3_1_1&zone=pc&lm=pc3&prid=4916
12
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1755777,00.html
13
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4737671.stm
9
attacks in the US four years earlier, when the footage
was captured by either amateurs or professionals
using full size video cameras. Where as the 9/11
attacks had happened in broad daylight and over a
period of time that allowed TV crews to gain
unprecedented footage, the London bombings had
happened simultaneously and mainly underground.
Burcun Imir deputy head of the Dogan News Agency
in Turkey said:
Image 6
down exactly when blogging entered popular culture,
the 2003 war in Iraq was certainly a turning point.
Iraqi citizens were able to publish their uncensored
reports online using blogs, such as the ‘Baghdad
Blogger’ Salam Pax whose irreverent blog ‘Where is
Raed?’14 became an internet sensation during the
war and in the UK propelled blogging to the national
headlines.
The London bombings of July 7 2005 were significant
for the first real use of camera phone video footage
on the television news. The BBC received more than
1000 still images and 300 amateur video clips during
or immediately after the events15. Simon Bucks,
associate editor of Sky News stated;
“This is probably the first big story in Britain where
we have seen this effect, where camera phones
allow eyewitnesses a method of recording news
and getting it broadcast. It’s a democratisation of
news coverage. Viewers can contribute their own
content.”16
This was a significant change from the 9/11 terror
“We cannot be everywhere. We have 800
correspondents in Turkey but that is not enough.
As soon as people understand that we are
journalists, once they see our cameras, they
change. So we use sources, that’s what journalism
is, and this time it’s the citizen journalist.”17
In the UK ‘citizen journalist photo agencies’ such as
Scoopt18 have begun to appear, selling mobile
camera phone and digital camera pictures to the
press and media. Peter Jenkins commented on this:
Just before the London Bombings, a new photo
agency was born–Scoopt. A journalist with the
vision to see what cameraphones could do set up
an agency capable of taking these new technology
images and making some money out of them. It
has been a slow start for Glasgow based Kyle
MacRae, but his business plan is good and at the
time of writing there were around 3,500 amateurs
and mobile phone users out there registered with
his agency.19
(See image 7) Scoopt have recently signed a deal to
install its software onto 10 million handsets. Mobile
operator 3 aim to take the concept of citizen
journalism one step further and are seeking a deal
with leading news channels in the UK to create a
direct channel 20 for any member of the public caught
http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/
Burt, T. Mobile phone images present dilemma for TV. Financial Times, 11 July 2005. P.2.
16
Ibid.
17
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4540000/newsid_4546100/4546116.stm
18
http://www.scoopt.com/
19
Jenkins, P. I know it, you know it, but we need to tell the world. Journalist – Magazine of the NUJ. Oct?Nov 2005. P.
17.
20
Wray, R, Mobile group in talks to create TV link for citizen journalists, The Guardian, 10th April 2006.
14
15
Image 7
up in a major news event. As questions of
authenticity will be paramount, stringent editorial
control will need to be exercised by news
broadcasters. Professional journalists certainly see
the rise of citizen journalism as a threat, not to their
standards of professionalism, but possibly
undermining rates and further complicating issues of
ethics and copyright.
It is not only serious journalism that is been
challenged by cameraphone wielding amateurs, the
paparazzi, the nemesis of the rich and famous, can
now find their candid work undermined by anyone in
the right place at the right time with a cameraphone.
What will be the impact of the omnipresence of
cameraphones and their ability to allow constant
covert intrusion into the private lives of celebrities is
hard to imagine. At this years BAFTA film awards,
mobile provider Orange, sponsors of the event,
provided
amateur
‘snappers’
armed
with
cameraphones their own press pen outside the
Odeon in Leicester Square21. Orange created a new
term for the amateur photographers calling them
‘waparazzi’ and say they will “roll out similar events in
the future to reflect how consumers are taking a
much more interactive role in major news and
events”.22
The artistic utilisation of mobile technologies and the
democratisation of art in the age of digital production:
The leading handset manufacturers have enlisted
leading photographers to add professional gravity to
their products, Sony Ericsson enrolled renowned
photographer Martin Parr for the launch of the K750i
and Nokia have another influential photographer
Juergen Teller amongst its experts to promote the
new N series camera phones. Parr was impressed
with the photographs he produced with the K750i and
exhibits some of the images on his website
www.martinparr.com. Not surprisingly we are
beginning to see the utilisation of mobile technologies
for artistic purposes. There is an exhibition currently
taking place at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery New York
called ‘Media Miniature’, with contributions from a
group of artists including Lev Manovich. Guest
curator Christina Yang states;
“This exhibition aligns itself with a discourse on
older forms of literary invention such as the printing
press. What was once a mass social experience,
whether in cathedrals or theatres, became possible
to carry in a pocket. Equally, laptops, cell phones,
and iPods have become the matrix of expanded
social networks nevertheless human in scale and
contact.”23
Dean Terry is an artist creating artworks with a
cameraphone, mo.vid.1" is a mobile video project
that updates every time a video is sent from his
mobile phone to the gallery, often several times a
day. The display changes as new videos are sent
from the phone, through wireless networks, and to a
computer in a gallery. These are micro videos, fifteen
seconds long, made wherever the artist happens to
be. They are projected on a large, vertical wall. A
second projection high above the first plays previous
videos in random order.
The project is centered on the idea of remapping
private spaces into public ones, of reversing scale, of
http://www.orange.co.uk/entertainment/film/baftasWaparazzi.php
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1713281,00.html
23
http://www.pratt.edu/news/popup.php?story=03.02.06_Pratt_Manhattan_Gallery_Exhibition_Explores_
Diminutive_Scale.html
21
22
inverting and rejecting the consumerist idea of
"quality" and its technological expression in ever
higher resolutions by exploiting the limits of the
devices. The videos are really pretty poor with all the
compression artifacts, and these limitations are
exposed by using two Apple Mac G5's to drive the
system and two high resolution projectors to display
it. This work was exhibited at the Dallas Center for
Contemporary Arts last year and can also be viewed
at www.100lies.com.
Terry’s project also examines what it means to
project very private space immediately surrounding
the body into meta-space. Many of the videos show
objects little more than a few centimeters beyond the
tiny lens, often some body part, like hands or
forearms that obscure an unknown, overexposed
background space. Other pieces are gestural
performances, recording the movements required
when following a line, or when trying to create shapes
by moving the camera in certain ways.
Traditional paintings are often created over a long
period. This project is atomistic and performative.
The bits (individual 15 second videos) pile up over
time, and the composite, the themes, are the
paintings - collections of idea streams, are captured
in development, in process. This is a real time art
piece, and so the themes are being worked out over
the course of two months. The artist says that the
next iteration of this project will use different
strategies and develop new themes.
As part of the British Art Show 06 artist Goshka
Macuga has created an artwork entitled Showcases
– A Virtual Gallery which was exhibited at the
Hayward gallery in London and is now on tour around
the UK. This installation allows members of the public
to send in their own artwork via cameraphones to
display in the virtual gallery. (See image 8) The
challenge was to seamlessly integrate basic and
often low resolution cameraphone imagery into a
polished, virtual environment. Showcases is a
cinematic sequence of intriguing rooms, staircases
and dramatic corridors – beautifully shot in black and
white by photographer Nigel Spalding. The result is a
constantly updated artwork in ever changing
Image 8
environments. The showcases website allows users
to view their submissions at any time.
I am currently working on a new art project called
15x15 with two colleagues, Oliver Dore & Greg Brant.
The 15x15 project is a homage to Warhol, a
realisation of the artistic utilisation of new media
technology and the democratisation of art in the age
of digital production. In 1968 Andy Warhol stated
that; ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for
15 minutes’. Warhol's statement was based in his
interest in fame and famous people. His view of the
media was that they could enable any person to
become famous, the rise of reality television shows
has given new meaning to Warhol's 15 minutes
quote. Using Warhol’s statement as a premise,
15x15 advances the statement into the 21st century;
with new media technology anyone and everyone
can be world famous....for 15 seconds. (See image
9)
In the 21st century art is being fundamentally realigned
for anyone and everyone. Participants can contribute
to the piece using a standard mobile camera phone
that can capture video and can send video clips
directly from their camera phone using MMS
(Multimedia Message Service), via email or upload
from their personal computer to the online database;
http://www15x15.org or email [email protected]. The
clips can be portraits, experiential, vignettes,
experimental, of love, of life, of anything, from the
image in the digital age and the ephemeral nature of
‘born-digital’ materials and the web at large remains
to be seen.
Image 9
banal to the downright bizarre! The viewable artwork is
an interface consisting of 15 individual rectangular
screens, each individual screen displays a random
video clip stored within the database for a 15 second
duration: 15x15.
The work was first shown at the 4th International
Symposium of Interactive Media Design, Yeditepe
University, and will be exhibited at other locations
throughout the world and viewable on the web at
anytime, any location.
Conclusion:
William J Mitchell stated that on its 150th anniversary
in 1989 photography was dead, at least as it had
been known, and that the digital era signalled a new
paradigm shift for photography at large. In an
unprecedented way 16 years later, the web and
mobile camera phones are redefining photography
once more, signalling another paradigm shift. The
photographic image is no longer a printed image, it is
much more likely to be seen on a screen than on
paper. Images can be easily shared and
disseminated via the web, which has superseded the
traditional modes of presentation and publication.
They can be tagged and commented on and archived
for prosperity. Photography has never been so
instantaneous or so disposable, one click to capture
and another to delete. Photography (still & moving)
has simultaneously shaped and recorded history,
what then will be the impact of the disposability of the
With the exponential technological change that has
occurred over the last decade, photography’s artistic
and social utilisation requires that the medium and
the concept be reconsidered, yet again. The web has
created new opportunities for the dissemination and
exhibition of photographic work and the
cameraphone is only just beginning to have an
impact. That camera phones will continue to improve
with every model release is certain and that they will
continue to become central lifestyle devices capable
of much more than the humble telephone call. We
are beginning to see their artistic and social utilisation
increase and act as a nucleus for new forms of social
and cultural practice and the beginning of a new era
of artistic exploration. Photography is not dead, it is
simply being redefined as new media.