Photography in the Age of Hypermedia

I have to admit that I am a dinosaur in the photography world. Analogue is primarily what I practice with and the whole digital world is quite new to me although I do enjoy many aspects of social media（apart from Facebook which I detest!）. So, to write here about Photography in the Age of Hypermedia is, by all accounts, a strange experience. I don’t dislike digital, it is simply a totally new experience and as such takes time to get to enjoy.

In 1974 Cornell Capa, founder of the International Center for Photography（ICP）in New York, announced that “Photography is demonstrably the most contemporary of art forms; it is the most vital, efective and universal means of communication of facts and ideas between peoples and nations.” The ICP had a remit to preserve the archives and exhibit the work of what Capa called “concerned photographers” everywhere. This was now some years ago, and things have changed immeasurably since, and while there are still photographers and institutions that support the older types of photography（and our university is certainly one of these institutions）there are many more who do not even feel they need to know what a roll of ilm is. Last month I interviewed a potential student from Sweden who indeed had never seen a roll of ilm: he wanted me to show him a negative as he could not comprehend the idea of there being a limited number of frames on a ilm.

What was this older kind of photography? Was it really limiting? Has it disappeared?What is the contemporary art form of the photographic world now? The internet and the ubiquity of digital cameras, they say, are radically altering how we see the world, and what we do with what we see. There is no argument with that. The fast-forward momentum of digital technology changes our sense of what it means to make images, or imagery, and results in work that feels more like play, work that turns old into new, elevating the banal. Work that has a past but feels absolutely present. The elevation of the banal is one thing that the internet specialises in–from selies to family meals to the living rooms of ordinary people leading ordinary lives. As well the internet has allowed for the possibility of so many people taking part in creative production. I recall with fascination the story of the woman sufering from agoraphobia who made her own travel photography album through an insightful way of grabbing images from google street view: not only did she ind a way of getting out into the world, without leaving her home, but also to make a highly imaginative response to what she found there. The internet has opened up a space for so many people who in the past have been side-lined by society: it is a democratising force that cannot be denied, yet it has a darker side. As a single mother at home in the countryside with two small children I remember vividly being able to work late into the night and early morning getting emails sent to gallerists and publishers: communicating with the world in a way that ten years earlier I would not have been able to and I would certainly not have been able to develop a photography career at the same speed. Yet more recently I was the subject of severe online bullying for which I had no recourse, and which corrupted my life and livelihood（temporarily）.

The mass of images being made, sent, uploaded, and consumed is undeniably ininite and terrifying. Can we still ind meaning in photography, can we even think about its extraordinary nature anymore? And what about the archive? We no longer have family albums, we use Facebook or other social media, where do these things go once we pass?（I understand this is already planned for）. What about those archives that suddenly get discovered; boxes of prints at auctions or in attics–where will we ind these or what will we ind in their place?How will we learn to store and use the archive? Is your cloud full yet? One can only imagine a huge library in the sky, guts full to the brim with our narcissistic legends: how much more self-referencing can we indulge in before we can no longer see outside? There are no windows now only mirrors in this Brave New World.

The filmmaker Andrew Keen has spoken passionately about the pitfalls of digital democratisation: "When you leave everything to the crowd, where everything is democratised, when everything is determined by the number of clicks, you are by deinition undermining the seriousness of the artistic endeavour." He says, "There is no evidence that we are on the verge of a great new glittering cultural age, there is evidence that we may well be on the verge of a new dark age in cultural terms … where the creative world is destroyed and where all we have is cacophony and self-opinion, where we have a crisis of democratised culture."

When photography was born, everyone said that painting was dead–this did not happen. When digital photography arrived, everyone said analogue photography was dead but now there is a renaissance of analogue and in the art market place analogue photography is particularly revered. The buyers hunt for hand crafted images preferably made by the artist themselves. Equally, with the advent of the internet everyone said that the photo book was dead and now it is one of the most fetishized and sold objects in the photography world. It is in our nature to have a healthy level of cynicism, though beware don’t dump the darkroom yet？if you love it why not keep it.

There is no doubt that digital technology and the so-called “hypermedia” world are taking over in almost all of the commercial sectors of photography and it is only the strange and small bastions of art based photography that still appreciate the craft that went with analogue processes. The digital revolution has brought with it a range of complex cameras and computer programs with which we can breathe a hyper-real life into our fantasies. We can have second lives, we can immerse ourselves in social networks, we can chat with anyone in the world at any time of day, and we can communicate through creative activity in ways that we would never have imagined possible. Citizen journalism, for example, has radically changed the face of news: we hear it from the homes, and perspectives, of ordinary people. Our collaborative project here in Lishui is an example of how brilliantly photography is a language without borders. For the whole summer 10 students from the UK and 10 from China（who had not previously known each other）worked together via social media and the internet）on photography projects（in pairs）that explored diferences and similarities at home and abroad.They exhibited this work in Lishui, 20 years ago they would never have met each other.

Despite the digital and space age developments it continues to undergo, photography is thriving in the gallery world and in the art marketplace（in certain locations）. Photography departments in museums are growing and specialist curators follow; the photo book is booming, and self-publishing has become an industry worth studying.

Today photography is easy but today photography is diicult？one must not be deceived by the ease of the mobile phone camera？we can snap easy shots, but can we make meaningful narratives that will have longevity and speak about our experiences in a way that is important to the histories of our societies? This is the job of the artist, the photographer,the art director, and the editor: they have the knowledge about how to make signiicant photographic works and how to use them, where to put them and how to produce them so that they yield the maximum impact and meaning. This is what we are educating our students for.

Many of us, in this business, are teachers and students of photography. What should we be teaching our students today? How should we be teaching? Why is there still such a prominence of North American and West European photography being taught in our class rooms?And not enough about the great women photographers either.

Photography is practiced across the globe, it is also practiced by equal numbers of men and women. We should think about what we can do now with our augmented reality, our360-degree cameras, and our virtual reality. What kind of meaningful work can we make and how do we make sure that we use the appropriate methods and processes and not simply use the newest technology because we are excited by it.

I myself will do all that I can to ensure that analogue processes and crafts are taught alongside the new age processes - there is nothing more wonderful than holding an analogue print or watching that print develop, like magic, in front of your eyes under the simpering red light of the dark room. And what about the nature of capturing light? How does this change the image? With analogue there is a kind of organic gathering of light whereas the digital camera pixels save millions of pinpricks of light. You see the diference most in the print and despite the attempts of the printer manufacturers to emulate analogue it still doesnāt do it.Take a good look at that analogue colour print and think about the depth and softness of the colour - it lacks the clarity of digital and is less hyper real, more beautiful some would say（including me）.

Photography is always at a turning point, it is intrinsically mixed up with both evolving technology and the recording of developing social structures; it seems to need to constantly re-invent itself and strive to do new things, to be one step ahead in our constantly competitive world. Yet I urge people to recognise and treasure the value of the older processes, to keep them alive for the sake of learning and history and because analogue has a diferent quality that is worth preserving.

Photography is a difficult medium to discuss and to analyse because it has so many forms - it is vernacular, it is art, it is documentary, it is abstract - it is a family snap and an estate agents promotional picture. When you are asked what you do, and you say you are a photographer people often ask if you do weddings or portraits and when you try to describe what you do it becomes complicated. It is this complexity that those of us who study the medium relish.

New technology can be relished too, though no amount of technology will turn a mediocre photographer into a great one. Photography and photographers cannot turn a bad idea into a good one. For that you would still need to possess a rare set of creative gifts that are still to do with seeing, deep looking, thinking, risk taking, understanding, and a knowing ability of how to work with other people.

Photography in the Age of Hypermedia is simply another version of photography.Photography is a medium that continuously re-incarnates itself. As its technical make up re-adjusts itself it becomes more accessible to more people; the ever-evolving democratic art form. Any of us involved in photography today should celebrate the marvel of its technology alongside the magic of its craft throughout its history. We should also remember to look further aield than what is presented to us in the popular press and history books; there are millions of stories about photography across the globe that need to be heard from both male and female photographers - this medium is not prejudiced.