Wells Chapter 7

An interesting point of chapter 7, Photography in the “Age of Electronic Imaging” of Wells’ Photography: a Critical Introduction, is the how the type of images that are produced nowadays, with the rapidity of digital photography and the ability to see and delete photographs before they are shared, has changed. Author Martin Lister discusses how “framing” an image used to be a skill learned by professional photographers but is now possible for anyone with digital technology, that allows the camera operator to see their composition before snapping the image. There is perhaps less value placed upon a photograph with this technology because it has become so easy to delete a bad photo and immediately take it again, but this ability has provided us with many more images then were ever able to be produced before in history. Photos are more rapidly edited in this day and age but that does not change the fact that most artistic photographs were edited in the past as well. Essentially, digital methods of photography make it possible for more and better quality images to be produced by both amateurs and professional photographers. 

Image sharing sites such as “Flickr”, “Facebook”, “Instagram”, and “Pintrest”, have changed the way we consume digital images as well. Martin reveals in the chapter that in 2006 “ ‘Flickr‘ had 4.5 million registered users, 17 million visitors a month, and was storing 230 million of it’s users photographs”. This immense number of images available from one site alone is bound to change the way one looks at and appreciates photographs, but not in an entirely negative way. The downfall to being exposed to so many photographs is that the average viewer will tend to spend less time looking at any one image, but an artist or someone trained to critique art now has a lot more to look at and learn from. I believe the new possibilities that digital photography offers us are overall a positive change in the art world.