Digital Photography - Social Impact

Social Impact

Digital cameras have decimated the film photography industry through declining use of film rolls and development chemicals previously required to develop the photos. This led to a decrease in film and film camera sales and film processing, and has had a dramatic effect on companies such as Fuji, Kodak, and Agfa. In addition, many stores that used to offer photofinishing services or sell film no longer do, and those that do have seen a tremendous decline. In 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy after struggling to adapt to the changing industry.

Up until the advent of the digital camera, amateur photographers could either buy print film for their camera, or slide film. If they purchased slide film, the resulting slides could be viewed using a slide projector. Digital photography revolutionized the industry by allowing for photographs to be viewed without conventional development processes and the significant time and costs associated with it. The ease of viewing, transferring and editing allowed consumers to manage their digital photos without use of specialized equipment.

Digital Cameras in cell phones however has arguably the largest impact on society. Smart phones have the ability to take and upload the taken images instantly to the Interet in minutes allowing the photographer in certain situations; even if the photographer is discovered and the images or recording are deleted pictures are not necessarily lost.

Simon Glik was arrested in 2007 for recording a police arrest on his cell phone, but after filing a federal lawsuit he won the case and even prompted the Obama administration to comment on the matter. Carlos Miller, a Miami journalist, recovered video of police officers arresting him after it was deleted from his camera. Throughout 2011 and 2012, images of Syrian protests were recorded and transmitted through the use of cell phones equipped with digital cameras.

Of growing concern for both archivists and historians is the relative non-permanence or transitory nature of digital media. Unlike film and print, which are tangible and immediately accessible to a person, storage of digital images is ever-changing with old media and decoding software becoming obsoleted or inaccessible by new technologies. Historians are concerned that we are creating a historical void where information and details about an era will have been lost within either failed or inaccessible digital media. It is recommended that both professional and amateur users develop strategies for migrating stored digital images from old technologies to new. Scrapbookers who may have used film for creating artistic and personal memoirs may need to modify their approach to digital photo books to personalize them and retain the special qualities of traditional photo albums.

The web has been a popular medium for storing and sharing photos ever since the first photograph was published on the web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1992 (an image of the CERN house band Les Horribles Cernettes). Today popular sites such as Flickr, Picasa and PhotoBucket are used by millions of people to share their pictures.