Digital Imaging, Case Study Example

Does digital imaging represent a paradigm shift from analogue photography? 

The question as to whether digital imaging represents a “paradigm shift” from analogue photography can be approached from a multitude of angles: for example, is the “paradigm shift” in question one that is also relevant on the level of aesthetics, so that it fundamentally changes how the artist conceives of photography as an art form? At the same time, this question of aesthetics can also be tied to a question of technology: do technological advances in various forms of art influence the nature of art itself? Certainly, in this broader sense, it would seem that technological advances do influence art forms, to the extent that they change or introduce new possibilities into a given medium: the extent to which a “paradigm shift” occurs in a field such as photography is therefore ascertained by judging the extent to which digital photography offers entirely new possibilities to the field of photography. In this regard, it would seem that such a paradigm shift is in fact a reality.

Lister (year) helps us understand what is at stake in this shift when he writes the following: “this transition from the photo-mechanical image, a material analogue with its compelling sense of a referent in a prior reality, to the immaterial digital constructions and hybrids whose sources may be mathematical and ‘virtual’ as much as empirical, is being seen as a key element in a radical transformation of visual culture.” (p. 4) In other words, in this shift to digital photography the parameters of the photographer’s relationship to his or her subject matter has radically changed: the physicality of the immediate relationship between the photographer and the object to be photographed is no longer paramount. The digital world has altered the possibilities of photography, in so far as “the empirical” relationship between photographer and object is no longer defining the photograph itself: there is the period of what may be called “post-production”, after the image is produced, that arguably becomes more critical to the process itself, as Lister notes when he talks about the “immaterial” nature of current digital photography. The materials being photographed lose their defining role: the accent on possibility has been shifted elsewhere, and this is made possible by digital technologies.

Mitchell (year) seems to make this same point when he writes the following, referring to the work of Weston: “the art of the digital image cannot adequately be understood as primarily a matter of capture and printing, as Weston conceived photography: intermediate processing of images plays a central role.” (p. 8) The emphasis in digital photography is thus different than traditional or classical photography: to the extent that digital photography can still be understood to belong to photography, then this represents a clear re-definition of the paradigm of photography.

Certainly, authors such as Manovich (YEAR) dispute this point: he writes that because there is a “loss of data, degradation and noise” (p. 55) that results from the shift to digital photography, then what is occurring here is actually a loss of possibilities in contrast to analogue photography. This is a valid point; however, if we re-frame the loss of possibilities that Manovich sees in terms of a re-definition of possibilities, then the implications of the shift to digital photography cannot be denied.Whether digital photography is an improvement on analogue photography is an entirely different question: that is a question of pure aesthetics. However, when thinking about how technologies may give the artist new possibilities, perhaps at the expense of losing some other possibilities, there is still nevertheless present in such an exchange a re-defining of a paradigm, a re-defining of the parameters of a discipline and its normativities: in this sense, the rise of digital photography can only mark a “paradigm shift.”

References

Lister. “Introductory Essay.” Manovich. (XXXX?). “The Myth of The Digital.” Mitchell. “Beginnings.”