WHAT DIGILATIZATION HAS TRANSFORMED: CONTINUITIES AND DISCONTINUITIES FROM ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Abstract

150 years after the invention of analogue photography in 1989, digital photography appeared andtransformed the traditional perceptions about photography. In the era when analogue photography wascommon, it has been assumed that the relation between photography and external reality/ truth isdirectional and unmediated. With digitalization, this kind of relation has vanished which resulted inperturbation. This perturbation gave rise to the claims that photography has ended. Different potentialrelations in which truths have been constructed have become the main topics of the discussions with thedigital transformation and digital photography. Discussions in this period reveal that there is not adichotomy between digital and analogue, rather there is reciprocal relation from analogue to digital whichconsists of continuities and discontinuities. This understanding of relation is far from suggestingtechnological determinism, rather socio-cultural transformation and changes in the photographic practiceshave been determinative. In this study, it is articulated that not only technology is decisive in the processfrom analogue to digital, the reciprocal relations between socio-cultural transformation and practices inphotography have also been determinant.