Abstract
Photographic practice and content has always had an intimate relationship with photographic technology. The initial invention of the camera as a device for capturing images has been followed by myriad related inventions for improving the quality, size, color, speed and appearance of images, each of which has affected the kinds of photographs taken by photographers and their aesthetic and psychological effects on audiences. Traditionally, paper was the predominant medium for displaying photographs and has itself undergone a series of parallel innovations with advances in printing technology. However, the advent of mass digital photography in the 1990s has not only seen the rise of screen-displayed photographs as an alternative to photographic prints, it has also enabled photographic content to become part of a new digital ecosystem of multi-media information and devices (Sarvas and Frohlich 2012). Whereas the technological system for doing photography in the past was a relatively stable and closed world of film exposure, processing and printing, the current system is a dynamic and open one of digital bits. The capture and representation of images in digital form allows them to be made at almost zero cost, moved between different Information and Communications Technology (ICT) devices at will, and displayed in a variety of contexts and sizes. It also allows them to be shared with other people more easily and combined with other media such as video, text, music and sound recordings.