Lhivic Lecture A. Gunthert “History of Digital Photography” Or Making sense of the facts: tools (technology) & uses
Is History just a couple of facts jumbled up together with dates, important figures names and pictures or illustrations related as a series of events? There are many way of relating events and joining them up with facts and figures to make sense out of these, but the important questions to ask before embarking on such a venture are the following: What are the conditions for realizing this project? Is there sufficient documentation? What outline can be applied to relating the history for this particular topic? Can an outline, already in use in a related field be applied to the one we want to research on? Is there an existing history of this topic? If yes, then how will the new outline proposed be different from the existing one? If not, then what are the reasons for the absence of this history? What is the goal for presenting important facts about a particular topic and why will the historical approach be appropriate? The present situation regarding the facts about digital photography lacks a practical approach in making sense of the different recording technologies and their uses that were and are still in practice today. The reasons for the absence of a Technical historical account/ explanation of Digital Photography are the following: The first technical historical account of photography was published in 1851, just 12 years after the first patented “daguerreotype” of Louis Daguerre in 1839. The reasons behind these technical accounts of photography before the 1905 were the publications in reviews by the amateur photography clubs.
What happened next? In the beginning of the 20th century, the realism theories and movements in the field of Art, having erred, moved over to the photographical domain and developed a certain penchant for the “photograph” as an Art object. Consequently, during the 1920’s Art theories started being transposed on photographical theories, which overlooking or rather suppressing the technical aspects of the photographical protocols, started focusing on the creative genius aspect of photography. A heightened artistic theoretical approach towards photography therefore, led to a technical disinterest and an anti technical description of the real photographic practice. This shift can be observed in the writings of Elisabeth Eastlake, W. Benjamin, Sontag, Barthes, and Krauss. With these authors began and still reigns the photographical “fetishism” culminating in the theory of R. Krauss about “photographical indexing” “Every photograph is the result of a physical imprint transferred by light reflections onto a sensitive surface. The photograph is thus a type of icon, or visual likeness, which bears an indexical relationship to its object» 1
However, this fetishism stands corrected in view of Digital photography. With the digital photographical protocol which majorly depends on a photosensitive semi conductor chip, the charge coupled device (CCD) fitted with an Analog to Digital Convertor device (ADC), the reality captured digitally is only “one” (digital) representation, a representation vulnerable to alteration in digitally controllable environment of the CCD protocol. Hence, the fetishism attached for so long to the photographical protocol can be explicitly nullified on technical grounds. In the light of these arguments, then does the history of Digital Photography begin with the semi conductor chip, created in 1969, in the AT&T Bell laboratories? Before finalizing this point a on ground check of existing information on the web is important to answer this question. What is the existing information on this topic and most importantly how is it available? A Google search run for this topic can give a fair idea of the existing information presented in three ways: • • •
Institutional Information can be found on websites managed by famous Camera manufacturing brands: Sony, Canon, Panasonic www.sony.net/ ; www.canon.com/ Personal sites or web sites run by private non-commercial camera collectors: www.digicamhistory.com/ Information marketing sites. These commercial sites are against the “Open Source Concept” and hardly beneficial to student researchers.
Encyclopedic site articles such as “Wikipedia” are a gold mine for information and related search links. (to be continued) 1
Rosalind Krauss « Notes on the index, Seventies Art in America » 1977