The digital revolution saw the term ‘user’ come in to describe anyone purchasing electronic goods any thing from tablets, PCs, smart phones to digital cameras. The term ‘user’ had up until then been exclusively reserved for describing drug addicts. This misnomer perhaps isn’t as unfitting as it first seemed, especially given our constant craving for the latest gadget, app or game. Mobile phone and  camera manufacturers have seem this and acting a the proverbial ‘dealer’ see to it that we get our fix on a regular basis. If these manufacturers are the dealers, social media such as tic toc, facebook and instagram are the cartel ensuring we have the base need.  

Taking a photograph used to require patience, focus and the attention of the photographer. However with the demand for images and the ease of which to take these the ‘photographer’ has become almost redundant. The evolution of digital image has done away with the camera, such as we think of it, replacing with the ‘cameraless’ CCTV, webcam, smartphone and satellite. 300 million images uploaded daily¹. The virtual stuttering of shutterless image makers we view the world on a screen at the back of a device rather than experience it. As with live music where the crowd are fixated on the screen they hold aloft, capturing that memory, experience of the live performance, to say ‘I was there’ when posting on YouTube, but were they ‘really’ there. 

So too the self portrait has evolved into a tool for self promotion, be it from a commercial sense or the need for personal glorification.  When discussing the self portraiture of K8 Hardy, Lauren Cornell states ‘Her vignettes don’t only offer a glimpse of her life and milieu, they reflect an intimate approach to self-portraiture that has yielded to a pop culture that compels us to narrate our lives in the first person. When we take photographs today, we always care about who, besides us, might see them.’² 

This throws into question, can a photographer who uses self-portraiture in their practice gain public awareness from platforms such as Instagram given the over saturation of selfies. 

In relation to this new generation of digital image makers the film maker and photographer Win Wenders discusses his Polaroid’s of the 70s and 80’s: 

 ‘You produce something that in itself, a singular moment. As such it had a certain sacredness. That whole notion is gone. The culture has changed. It has all gone. I really don’t know why we stick to the word photographer anymore. There should be a different term, but nobody cared about finding it’. 

This statement was made during an interview with Sean O’Hagen for the Guardian news paper³. I feel O’Hagen mis-translated Wenders’ words to mean that this was the ‘end of photography’ however as I understand it he was in fact referring to the evolution of the image for a personal record to one that is instantly transmitted to the world. Photography certainly isn’t dead it’s just a different beast, the new digital era that we must embrace or be brushed aside.  

References

¹ Marr. B (2018),Forbes report [online] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/how-much-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-should-read/?sh=51112cf660ba %5BAccessed 27.11.2020]

²Cornell. L (Nov 24, 2015)Aperture Magazine ‘Self-portraiture in the first person age’.

³ O’Hagan. S (2017), The Guardian [online], ‘Wim Wenders on his Polaroids – and why photography is now over’,  https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/oct/12/wim-wenders-interview-polaroids-instant-stories-photographers-gallery [Accessed 27.11.2020]