Viewpoint

The Disembodied Photograph

  • May 1999
  • By A.D. Coleman

Photography undergoes a sea change toward the intangible

   

Think of photographs and you think of images: photographs in newspapers, magazines and books; photographs on billboards; photographs in your family album, desk drawer or shoe-box; photographs on your parents' piano; photographs on your driver's license and passport; photographs as framed posters; photographs as expensive, handmade limited-edition signed original prints in galleries and museums, or perhaps even in your own personal art collection. Which is to say that when you think of photographs you also think of things. That makes sense, because until now photographers of all sorts-amateurs, professionals, applied, fine-art-have been object-makers as well as image-makers.

As a result, we've become accustomed to touching, holding, carrying and passing around various forms of actual photographs. Yet, as a result of digital evolution, we now face the imminent diminution of the presence of the photograph-as-object in our lives.

 

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