The value of a photograph

We in the West tend to take digital photography for granted. What makes me say this you wonder? I was watching a documentary the other day about some 9/11 related subject (don't worry this isn't going to be a conspiracy blog) and was struck by something. All the major players in the manufacture of 35mm film stock - Fuji, Kodak et-al, the stuff you'd buy from your local camera shop or Boots the Chemist, have stated that they'll be phasing out that old format in favour of making everything digital.

There's a price to be paid for that; immediacy.

This doesn't really make much sense as a reason for us in the West but think on the following... The reason for this commentary was this. As I was watching this documentary on the Internet (it was a PBS special) they showed a woman in Afghanistan being interviewed in the bombed out shell of her former home where her whole family had nearly been killed during the attacks of various armed forces in the region. She was explaining to the interviewer what had happened and how much of a loss it was to the extended family, something that's still important in that area of the world (unlike the West where that ideology has disintergrated and fractured into individualism).

Back in the room they now used as a house she further explained the loss, this time she showed that loss; she lined up a series of photographs on the floor propped up by cushions so the camera could see them. They were dirty, grubby, and in some cases torn, but each showed the family member that had been lost; her children, her husband, sisters and brothers; you could see from the state of the photos that they were well used and probably carried close to hand at all times.

This physicality, this immediacy, is something that's particular to the tangible form of 'analogue' photographs; something that digital photography don't have, it's all virtual, 1's and 0's that don't have any meaning outside of the specialised equipment that processes them; and you can't process digital photos unless you have access to not just the equipment, but to the electricity that runs them! In the absence of that basic necessity what do you do? Analogue photographs have shown through time that they can be processed anywhere and by anyone.

Personally I think it's a mistake to completely phaseout the 'old way'; how would this woman have been able to show her loss if they only medium available was digital? There aren't that many digital photo frames hanging on the walls of bombed out hellholes.

Posted on 04 May 2007 by kenb • link to this article • [back]