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Engaging with photos involves more than just one of our five senses. In addition to just looking at a photo, we might hold it, turn a grouping of photos into a collage, and chat about pictures with friends. As is evident from these examples, and as Elizabeth Edwards argues in “Thinking Photography Beyond the Visual?”, … Continue reading
In Thinking photography beyond the visual?, Elizabeth Edwards argues that the role of photographs goes beyond that of the image object. She describes a sensory approach to understanding photographs that emphasizes the impact that the material culture has on the complex ecology of social interaction. She says, “…there is a cultural desire for the material … Continue reading
In something of a throwaway comment within a broader discussion, Catherine Zuromskis situates amateur, domestic pornography as an “alternative” snapshot practice, in the same league as other “misuses” of snapshot material available to us (61). This makes sense in the context of her argument, that primarily deals with material, family snapshots, and the regulatory discourse … Continue reading
In 2013, Sarah Elizabeth Meyler filmed people at a club in Dublin under the pretense she was taking their photos instead. The resulting two minute video is entirely comprised of titivating and facial embellishments and the result, underscored by a jarring piano sonata, seems to derogate rather than celebrate this self-conscious tendency to preen for a camera. Their behaviour in the video–the strange … Continue reading
Tinder is an algorithm-based mobile dating application designed to match users based on the notion of first impressions. Drawing on key concepts from Smith and Watson’s “Virtually Me”, some of the behaviors of Tinder users can be examined. Tinder’s audience consists of singles that use mobile phones and Facebook (the two requirements for making an … Continue reading
In a recent profile, Paper Magazine writes that “social media has created a new kind of fame and Kim Kardashian is its paragon.” Dubbed by Paper as the “High Priestess of Instagram,” Kardashian celebrated 27 million followers yesterday with a selfie of her butt. She now has the highest number of followers on the site … Continue reading
The term “digital storytelling” is often used to describe the mediation of personal stories online (Smith and Watson 71), which is particularly apt when it comes to the carefully curated versions of self seen in social media. Any user of social media has, sometimes subtly and sometimes obviously, altered his or her self on social … Continue reading
Smith and Watson’s Virtually Me expands their pre-existing work on autobiography, into digital spaces which they state is, “categorically different from what is understood as traditional life writing” (70). Part of what we have been talking up to this point in the class is how digital photographs are presented online and how different types of … Continue reading
Having read Gillian Rose’s research on “How Digital Technologies Do Family Snaps, Only Better” and a cross look at the archive of Awkward family photos, and reflecting on albums on Facebook, I noticed some changes in the “integrated practices” (72) of Family photography. Looking at Awkward family photos, these are taken from the past and … Continue reading
A few weeks ago, class discussion led to the question as to whether or not a technological artifice – in this case, camera technology from the mid 20th century onward – can be inherently racist (and, by extension, be considered in a number of other hierarchical antagonisms such as classist, sexist, ableist, and so forth). … Continue reading
Rhetoric of the Digital Image 