The desire to record images was the starting point for
modern photography. The earliest example of a camera, known as the camera
obscura, established the fundamental components for a camera which would
remained unchanged; an optical lens, an image plane to project onto, and a
method of recording from that plane. In the early 1800’s skilled drawers would
trace projected images on the image place, but as early cameras developed,
scientists searched for faster more convenient and accurate ways to preserve
the cast images.
Since then we have witnessed a period of rapid development which has resulted
in fast high resolution recording cameras becoming prevalent in nearly the
entire developed world, with an estimated 2.5 billion people owning a digital
camera.
The industries development towards automation in the photo
taking process, including the new levels of speed and versatility introduced
with digital cameras, has caused significant changes to the way users take and
view photos. New services and product designs have been developed off the back
off some of these trends/habits, so it is important to consider how digital
photography is utilised both to create and to consume images.
Since the transition from film to digital as the default method of image capture[4], digital photography’s penetration into modern society has resulted in the majority of people having access to a fast automatic digital device capable of creating images, be it a dedicated camera or an embedded phone/tablet camera. Alongside this, close relations with the development of computers means camera owners now have computer based storage capacity capable of holding thousands of photos, providing users with new opportunities to photograph things which previously could not be justified. This has led to an explosion of photographs being taken, with the average UK adult taking 19 photos per week, contributing to an estimated 635 million photos taken per week in the UK alone (excluding special events such as holidays, and taking into account adults who do not take any photos at all). An satirical infographic below highlights some of the less meaningful types of photos users now take.
“I see photographs
everywhere, like everyone else, nowadays; they come from the world to me,
without my asking; they are only “images”, their mode of appearance is
heterogeneous. Yet, among those which had been selected, approved, collected in
albums … and which had been passed through the filter of culture… [some] were
so indifferent to me that by dint of seeing them multiply, like some week, I
felt a kind of aversion towards them, even irritation: sometimes I detest
photographs.”
Digital imaging is a young yet fast maturing form of visual
communication and as such anything can be captured or expressed. As highlighted
in the extract above, even since the adoption of low cost film cameras there
has increasingly been a divergence between photos that are treasures, taken for
sentimental reasons, and photos taken purely to serve a fast practical
function, taken for non-sentimental reasons. “Photography has become more of an
archival process… record[ing] our everyday lives and social interactions.”[9]
New digital services and smart phone applications such as Instagram and
Snapchat capitalise on this ever rising wave of fast and practical low
sentimental value imaging. Images are generated just like short messages, and
consumed rapidly with no intent of the photo being used or looked at again in
the distant future.
Above is a screenshot of the popular new smart phone app
SnapChat. This application capitalises on the sharing of low value images, by
allowing the user to define how long the image ‘lives’ for (upto 10 seconds on
the screen) once opened by the recipient, before being automatically
permanently deleted. The graph below shows the steep increase in use over a
period of a year:
As evident from the pie chart above, quick consumable images
shared through Snapchat account for a fairly large percentage, over 25%, of
average daily photo uploads.
Habits of the digital generation
Regardless of the type of photo being taken, there are a
number of common observable user habits which have become embedded into the
modern photo taking process:
Traditionally in the era of film photography, rolls of film
would be taken to a processing lab to be treated to make prints. Now cameras
have screens, users have the ability to instantly see their photos immediately
after they are taken. Once home they can then do a range of things such as save
them onto a computer, upload them to the web, or print them out themselves:
Uploading to social networks is a fast growing consumption
method, with the majority of youth having access to their own online profiles. As
seen in the statistics shown on the following page, interaction with your own
and other peoples photos are the top activities taking place on the leading
social networks Facebook and Google+. The abundance of photos being posted, 330
million per day on Facebook for example, reduces the individual value of each image, especially when both
sentimental and non-sentimental photos are mixed together.