on digital photography

The role of the family photo changed at a glacial pace over its first hundred years. Initially they emulated paintings, the subjects formally posing for long exposure times. The Kodak Brownie and Instamatic made photography portable, allowing for more casual photographs to be taken. Still, a degree of formality was necessary and photographs were expensive objects, largely serving to mark special occasions and the passage of time.

Today, digital photography allows us to seamlessly see ourselves growing older and our children growing up. If, thanks to Facebook, Generation Y is the first generation that will not experience the phenomenon of losing touch, the next generation may be the first generation whose entire lives will be traceable online. Today’s NYT Magazine has a story on the relationship between digital photography and childhood today, the latter becoming a training ground for immediated reality.

With personal history that fine-grained, can temporality continue to function anymore? Or does it disperse into the IPTC code of the camera?