Although democratization is not a new trend, 2023 saw some significant motion and advancements in this field. Technological evolution and revolutions bring mass-media traits into more and more devices and people, giving rise to more diverse and various voices. Whether it’s hybrid cameras with their ever-growing feature sets, advanced smartphones, namely the iPhone 15 Pro, or the immense effect of AI-generated imagery – 2023 had it all. Democratization stands at the core of photography and is also a key motivation in every technological-communicational achievement, since the dawn of civilization. In this article we won’t go as far as Chauvet Cave, or Cueva De Las Manos, nor will we discuss the invention of print, but we will review the path of photography and film toward the democratization of knowledge and agency. Photographic imaging expanded the range of medium expression, but more importantly – enabled the untrained to capture (arguably) objective views of our world. While specific optical and chemical knowledge existed years before 1829, it was only then that it all accumulated into a single process creating a fixed photographic image. View from the Window at Le Gras (French: Point de vue du Gras), The oldest surviving photographic image made by French inventor Nicéphore Niépc Great. Now everyone can do it. I wasn’t there during the dawn of the 19th century, but I can safely assume that these kinds of quotes were pretty common. Suddenly there were no special skills required to “paint” a detailed landscape. All one had to do was to...
Published By: CineD - Wednesday, 27 December, 2023