As photography evolves with tech and AI, the past helps us understand the future

Australia Broadcast Center

a day ago

Kevin Parsons has a unique view of photography from the past to the present day.
His mother, an avid photographer in Western Australia's Midwest in the 1950s and 60s, left him a cherished collection of photo slides and 8-millimetre film reels.
"Anything in town, she would be there," he said.
Much of the material was shot at Geraldton, 400 kilometre north of Perth, and the surrounding regions.
It provides echoes of the past compared to the bustling regional city of today.
With no internet or social media, family slide-show nights were the only way to display your work to others.
"We used to have film nights in those days and get family and friends to come over and watch," Mr Parsons said.
Now in his 90s, Mr Parsons said these days he used a mobile phone for its simplicity.
"It's a lot easier to get it on there and you look at it immediately," he said.
"If it's not a good photo you take another one."
While technology has evolved, has the reason we take photographs changed too?
Emily Brink, an associate professor in the history of art at the University of Western Australia, said early photography was more commemorative.
Dr Brink said modern, virtual photography was far more controlled and focused on creating an image rather than capturing a moment in time.
"The way that we are experiencing our lives now is so increasingly mediated by the photograph," she said.
"You go out to have a meal and do you sit and enjoy that meal or are you photographing that meal for Instagram?
"How does that change your experience not just of social interaction in real space and time, but how does it essentially change your experience of that time?
"Your personality gets split between the social media personality you're constructing and the person you are actually, you know, who you are in the world."
"Authorship is really at the heart of all these questions, over and above the image itself," Dr Brink said.
"I want to believe that a photographer is still somebody who is choosing to take an image, not choosing to purely make an image."
Dr Brink said one reason people might be drawn to "old" photos is because they were not perfect, whereas today's images posted online were polished and glossy.
"We are no longer dealing with the kind of codes of construction that we ascribe to photography historically. It's more akin to design."
She said something was lost when photography was shared virtually rather than face to face.
"I think we lose some of the serendipity of laughing at the terrible photograph of the finger over somebody's head, in the same time and space.
"We can achieve amazing things, but I think when we acknowledge our shared imperfection that's really where community might be generated."
Almost a decade ago, French graphic and music designer Valentin Mermet-Bouvier made the music clip Cliche showcasing hundreds of images of people taking almost the exact same image.
Mermet-Bouvier, who performs as Hierophante, said he thought the music video was still relevant today.
"I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that we all tend to share the same kind of image in the same context," he said.
The clip was made as picture-based site Instagram was becoming increasingly popular.
"Lots of people were thinking the new generation were really egoistical and self-obsessed but I don't think it's true," he said.
"I think people have always been like that; the only thing that's changed is the possibility of sharing pictures."