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June 3, 2010
In his review of Sylvia Wolf’s The Digital Eye: Photographic Art in the Electronic Age at Conscientious Joel Colberg says:
It is fair to say that digital technologies have changed photography. What is less obvious - and much more interesting to explore - is what exactly these changes are or, even more interesting, which of these changes will have lasting impact and which ones will make us cringe - or maybe smile - in ten or twenty years.
Colberg says that Wolf's text is concerned with what these changes are through surveying the use of digital technologies in the contemporary fine-art context. The assumption is the best way to explore the image of digital technologies on photography is through image making and style. This is standard practice in the art historical context.
If we stand back a bit we can see that one big impact is the independent photobook where photography sings its loudest and most complex song. It is the current boom in self-publishing or the DIY photo book. This is one area of publishing that is flourishing.
Writing in the British Journal of Photography Gerry Badger (via Harvey Benge) says:
As with everything else, the digital revolution has made an enormous impact though. Thanks to online print to order companies such as Blurb, making a photobook is now within everyone's reach. We haven't seen the first online classic but we soon will, and at the very least online printing allows photographers to make great calling cards for regular publishers.In the last ten years some extraordinary photobooks have been published.
Martin Parr agrees:
We need and require mainstream publishers, but their books tend to be a lot more conservative. So the real workshop, and the place where people can experiment with ideas, is small publishers, or indeed self-publishing. The quality and variety of print-on-demand books is improving. When people like Blurb first appeared they too were very conservative, but they are constantly improving. In another 10 years time, you'll find many more photographers self-publishing their own Blurb books.
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