Please don't expect it to be interesting. My audience is... me.
To understand my points, you'll usually need to have read the article or book I'm discussing. Don't ask me to send copies to you -- I can't. I'll try to include links to them whenever possible.
Summary:
In this book, Ritchen examines how digital technology is changing photography. He considers the implications of digital photography itself, as well as the digitization and computer manipulation of photographs. He first discusses manipulations that have already occurred, such as making people in two separate photographs appear to have been photographed together (ie., Tom Cruise & Dustin Hoffman); rearranging elements withing photographs to fit in a differently shaped space or to appear more visually pleasing (ie., National Geographic); eliminating items (guns, soda cans, etc.); colorizing photos; and other digital manipulations.
He then turns to issues of the predictability of editorial photographs; images created entirely digitally, with no real-world referents; how photographs are deliberately shot (Life's "criminal look"), cropped (Ted Kennedy), and layed out (dog fighting photo essay) to make editorial points; how the photojournalist, despite being author of his or her photos, has limited control over them; and the future potential of "hyper-photography," with new ways of representing the world.
After discussing all this, Ritchin wonders, "Will we put the new technology to use recycling what we already know or use it to attempt new understandings? To what extent will these technological advances be employed to enhance the development of a derivative, postmodern culture, devouring its own past as it substantially alters our own collective memory? To what extent will they be used fto control us, or self-aggrandizingly to promote a 'God complex' ammong their users?" (p. 128).
My response:
First of all, I really wish Ritchen had spent more time revising and updating the first edition to reflect the realities of photo manipulation today. His examples are pretty old -- surely there are newer ones that he could have used to extend his argument. Also, I would have liked to see an exploration of the implications of the widespread use of desktop photo-editing software, like Photoshop and Paintshop Pro, which now permits everyone from amateurs to professional photographers to make changes to their photos for a comparatively small investment in money and time. Is the Scitex Response System even still in use?
I identified with Ritchin's sense that the digital image of New York he manipulated felt more real than the actual skyline as he flew over it. Professional photographs can look much better than the objects they depict do in real life, especially if they've been enhanced. I've noticed that in postcards/travel photos myself. Also, as I have intermediate level skills with Photoshop, and enjoy enhancing/altering digital photos to make them look better (Photoshop's clone stamp can yield the exact same effects he got from his skyline, with remarkable ease), I can understand the pleasure he derived from that experience.
At first, though, I was perplexed by Ritchin's disclosure of (what I feel are) his paranoid tendencies: His discomfort at considering whether people in the photos on subways were real, and then wondering if the people around him were real, was pretty odd. I can understand his point about the photos themselves, but his sense that the people around him might be unreal too was kind of pushing it. The idea that photos could have no real-life referents is not in itself unsettling to me.
But then I came to realize that perhaps this passage reveals something very important about the author himself: namely, his discomfort with the ability of photos to depict a reality that does not exist. This understanding informed my reading of the rest of the book and his intentions in writing it. I think that although the technology in many ways impresses him, Ritchin *wants* photos to depict reality. He seems to be writing at least in part through fear and discomfort with the changing nature of the technology. Given his background in print media, and the lack of control he explained that photographers have over their photos within the institutions that hire them, I can understand his fears -- it's a sense that if things are already bad for photographers, they can only get worse. And he wants the public to be cognizant of how all this will influence them, as well, for photos play an important role in the construction of reality. They shape our understanding of the world and events that most of us will never experience for ourselves.
His conclusion indicates these fears. He wrote, "It is up to us, if we can, to take advantage of the new technology's potentially illuminating perspectives; otherwise, it will be we who are taken advantage of and diminished, frozen in our own image" (p. 128). To me, this connotes a moral call to action, a need for us all to be active, to "take advantage" consciously, if we want a positive outcome from our new technologies. The alternative, passivity, would result in "the world becom[ing], imagistically, a highly claustrophobic place" (p. 128). This book is in so many ways Ritchin's warning to the world about the dangers of our technology AND its role in postmodernity. He fears the digital revolution has created a monster that will devour us all.