Advancement in the Arts and Technology: Digital Photography - Thesis Example

SPECIFIC ADVANCEMENT IN THE ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY SPECIFIC ADVANCEMENT IN THE ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY- DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY Academia-Research Order #:590789 Writer ID:21516 ABSTRACT The world has been witnessing a rapid transformation in the area of electronic communication in recent past involving digital information as distinct from analog signals. The field of humanities and arts has simultaneously been impacted by a digital revolution involving rapid and unprecedented dissemination of artistic work through digital communication. This thesis seeks to assess the specific advancement in the arts and the technology caused by the advent of digital photography, which has become an increasingly dominant factor in the area of performing arts of quite recent times. CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION AND THESIS STATEMENT 4 2. EVENTS THAT LED TO THE ADVANCEMENT 4 DISCUSS BACKGROUND OF THE TIME PERIOD 4 DISCUSS THE CLIMATE OF THE TIME PERIOD THAT LED TO ADVANCEMENT 5 3. EFFECTS OF ADVANCEMENT 6 DISCUSS THE ADVANCEMENT IN DETAIL 6 DISCUSS HOW THE ADVANCEMENT AFFECTED THE HUMANITIES 7 DISCUSS HOW THE ADVANCEMENT AFFECTED THE WORLD 7 4. EVOLUTION OF THE ADVANCEMENT 9 DISCUSS HOW THE ADVANCEMENT HAS EVOLVED 9 DISCUSS EFFECTS OF ADVANCEMENT ON LATER TIME PERIODS 9 5. CONCLUSION 10 6. REFERENCES 11 7. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 12 1. INTRODUCTION AND THESIS STATEMENT This thesis discusses the Digital Photography, a breakthrough technology of over three decades ago, as a specific advancement in the arts and technology. The thesis statement is “The advent of digital photography has revolutionized the field of arts because it has accelerated and simplified the technology of photography by drastically decreasing the time and expenses associated to take photographs, offering advanced tools of processing and enabling persons with little training and no experience to create beautiful photographs”. 2. EVENTS THAT LED TO THE ADVANCEMENT DISCUSS BACKGROUND OF THE TIME PERIOD Bellis (2011a) has summarized the background of the time period leading to the invention of digital photography. Though the basic principles of optics and camera were known to Chinese and Greek philosophers as early as during the 5th-4th centuries B.C., the discovery that white light was composed of seven different colors was made only in the 17th century by Issac Newton. In 1727, Johann Heinrich Schulze found out that sunlight acted upon silver nitrate to produce dark metallic silver. In 1814, Joseph Niepce obtained the first ever photographic image with camera obscura. Louis Daguerre developed a convenient and effective method of photography in 1837 called daguerreotype, which he introduced to the public in 1839 at Paris (Bellis,2011b). In 1841,William Henry Talbot invented the negative-positive photo making process capable of producing multiple copies. Frederick Scott Archer developed the Collodion process in 1851 requiring only a few seconds light exposure. In 1871 Richard Leach Maddox developed the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process. In 1884 George Eastman invented flexible paper-based photographic film and in 1888 he patented the Kodak roll-film camera. In 1898 Reverend Hannibal Goodwin patented the celluloid photographic film. The first commercially mass produced camera named Brownie was marketed in 1900. In 1913-14 the first 35mm still camera was developed which was followed by the development of flash bulb in 1927 by General Electric. The first light meter with photoelectric cell was introduced in 1932. Eastman Kodak introduced the Kodachrome film in 1935 and the Kodacolor negative film in 1941. Chester Carlson patented electric photography also called xerography in 1942. Edwin Land marketed the Polaroid camera in 1948.Eastman Kodak marketed the high-speed Tri-X film in 1954. Polaroid marketed the instant color film in 1963 and the SX-30 instant photography camera in 1973.In 1978, the first point-and-shoot autofocus camera was marketed by Konica. In 1980 Sony demonstrated the first consumer camcorder. Canon introduced the first digital electronic still camera in 1984. In 1985, Pixar marketed digital imaging processor. In 1990, Eastman Kodak introduced Photo CD as digital image storage medium.(Bellis, 2011a) DISCUSS THE CLIMATE OF THE TIME PERIOD THAT LED TO ADVANCEMENT The period of late 1960s was the time when NASA changed over from using analog signals to digital signals to facilitate their space probes to map the surface of the moon ( Bellis, 2011c). It was while attempting to develop a new kind of semiconductor memory for computers that the charge-coupled device (CCD) which is the crucial component of the digital camera came to be created by George Smith and Willard Boyle in 1969. Next year, these two innovators demonstrated the first CCD camera with images capable of being broadcast through television. The world of electronics and communication was witnessing rapid strides being made in technological advancements at that period of time. The CCD technology was being tried for a wide range of applications such as security monitoring, high definition television, endoscopy and videoconferencing. It was under these circumstances that Sony Corporation pioneered the first prototype digital camera called the Mayica in which images could be recorded as magnetic impulses on a video-floppy disc. ( Brooke,n.d.) 3. EFFECTS OF ADVANCEMENT DISCUSS THE ADVANCEMENT IN DETAIL The digital camera, along with the CD, the DVD, the HDTV, the MP3 and the DVR is one of the first consumer electronic gadgets which were developed based on a major technological breakthrough of the 1960s, namely, the conversion of conventional analogue or sinusoidal wave form information to digital information. This technological advancement has redefined the possibilities attainable in the arena of photography. While conventional photography was built around chemical and mechanical processes for developing and fixing of photographs, digital photography enabled the shooting of pictures and instantaneously saving them in a built-in computer of the camera in a digital format(Nice, Wilson & Gurevich,2011). Both the conventional camera and the digital camera use optical lenses to focus light coming from the object or scene being photographed. But instead of the film of the conventional camera on which the image is focused, the digital camera uses a semiconductor device such as a charge coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) to record the image electronically. This electronically recorded image is converted into a digital form by the built-in computer. The image can be viewed instantaneously on the LCD screen of the digital camera. The digital image can be loaded into a computer, sent directly to a printer or transmitted electronically through the internet. Digital cameras have their own storage systems which can be either fixed or removable devices. DISCUSS HOW THE ADVANCEMENT AFFECTED THE HUMANITIES Today the world is driven by the World Wide Web also called the internet. Beily,Yang & Donnelly (2011) reports that the internet is increasingly employed for viewing the arts. For example one third of the Australian population makes use of the internet for viewing the performing arts. Above 50% of the population is found to use the internet to be creative online. While 35% Australians use the web to do research on an artist or event, another 26% has come to learn about an artist or event online. More and more people use the internet for participating in artistic events because it releases them from the necessity to be physically present at the event or venue. Since digital photography generates photographs which can be uploaded, downloaded or otherwise electronically transmitted throughout the internet, all forms of arts today have become dependent on the transmission of digital photographs through the internet and broadcasting media. Cinema transmissions and the performing arts benefit immensely from the digital technology since the latter has increased public access to performing arts, increased the number of people in the audience viewing performing arts in live performances through online, facilitates experimentation with the art forms and results in more efficient business practices(Beily et al,2001, p15) DISCUSS HOW THE ADVANCEMENT AFFECTED THE WORLD Digital photography has not only revolutionized the photography and art media, but also affected everyone’s life in some way or other. The sales of photographic films have seen an annual fall of more than 60% since 2000 due to the fact that people are switching over to the digital camera from the earlier conventional cameras. Digital photography has dramatically changed the way people record their private lives though it has also made it more difficult to believe the authenticity of photographs (Wallack,2005). Since it does not involve the expenses of film processing, photographers have started shooting prolifically. Immediately after taking the photograph, the photographer can view his product and decide whether it is worth processing further or not. The way people relate to friends and family has also been changed irreversibly since the photo taken can be shared through the electronic media. People are in a position to take and record snapshots of any moment in life. But the notion that ‘camera never lies’ has been belied with the advent of digital technology with its various accompanying tools which can be used to add fiction to reality and morph the images. Digital photos have decisively affected international politics as exemplified by the case of Abu Ghraib incident, which raised a global outcry caused by circulation of digital photos of Iraqi prisoners abused by the some personnel of the US military which ended up as convenient pieces of evidence in the hands of the military agencies investigating the weird human right violations(Wallack,2005). Digital photography has, however, the potential to make a mockery of individual privacy since the private moments of any person can get uploaded to the public domain of the internet deliberately or by inadvertent error wherein it can be viewed by anyone who access the internet. Meanwhile, the 131-year old photographic company Eastman Kodak is facing a cash crunch even as the sales of photographic films continue their downslide(BBC,2011). 4. EVOLUTION OF THE ADVANCEMENT DISCUSS HOW THE ADVANCEMENT HAS EVOLVED The CCD technology of the digital camera has become all pervasive in the present times. Digital photography finds extensive application not only in television broadcasting, but also in wide ranging video applications such as security monitoring, endoscopy and desktop videoconferencing. Brooke (n.d.) states how these advancements were made possible by achieving various major milestones during the advancement of digital technology. The first prototype digital camera Mavica of Sony provided a 720,000 pixel image. Kodak developed the first mega-pixel sensor capable of recording 1.4 million pixels which could generate a 5x7 inch size photographs. Logitech started to manufacture the first completely digital camera in the form of the Dycam Model1 black-and-white digicam. In 1991 the Nikon F-3 camera fitted with 1.3 mega-pixel sensor developed by Kodak was released which was the first professional digital camera system for use by photojournalists. In 1994, Apple Computer produced their QuickTake 100 camera which could be connected to a PC via a cable. Now a variety of digital cameras of various sizes and shapes are being marketed by the leading market players such as Kodak, Nikon, Toshiba and Olympus. These developments have progressively transformed the art of photography hitherto performed by professional photographers with years of training into a form of entertainment within the reach of novices enabling them to capture and record the precious moments of their lives. DISCUSS EFFECTS OF ADVANCEMENT ON LATER TIME PERIODS Digital photography has offered new possibilities such as the use of special techniques like Orton effect(Chris,2006) and High Dynamic Range(HDR). Orton effect is a technique of sandwiching two images, one of which is in focus and the other out of focus and was invented by Michael Orton in the mid 1980s(Photography.ca,2009). In HDR, one image or a series of images are combined together by adjusting their contrast ratios to get beautiful images of high artistic quality(Ratcliff,2011). 5. CONCLUSION To recapitulate the thesis statement, the advent of digital photography has indeed revolutionized the field of arts by accelerating and simplifying the technology of photography resulting in a drastic cut in the time and expenses associated with photography, and by offering advanced tools of processing and enabling novices to create beautiful photographs. The art of photography has not only evolved into another past time within reach of everyone thanks to digital photography, but public access to performing arts has also been enhanced due to the advent of digital photography. 6. REFERENCES Bailey.J,Yang.H.Y,& Donnelly.S(2011) Impact of Digital Technology on Major Performing Arts Companies Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from www.ampag.com.au/LiteratureRetrieve.aspx?ID=88504 BBC(2011) Kodak may face cash crisis if patent sales fail Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15585158 Bellis,M(2011a) Timeline-History of Photography Retrieved Nov 4 ,2011 from http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/Photography.htm Bellis,M (2011b) Daguerreotype Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from http://inventors.about.com/od/dstartinventions/a/Daguerreotype.htm Bellis,M(2011c) History of the Digital Camera Retrieved Nov 4,2011 fromhttp://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bldigitalcamera.htm Brooke, B(n.d.)The Brief History of Digital Photography Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from http://www.bobbrooke.com/DigitalStudio/digitalhistory.htm Chris(2006) The Orton Effect Retrieved Nov4,2011 from http://pcin.net/update/2006/11/01/the-orton-effect-digital-photography-tip-of-the-week/ Nice.K, Wilson.T.V, & Gurevich.G,(2011) How Digital Cameras Work Retrieved Nov4, 2011 from http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cameras-photography/digital/digital-camera.htm Photography.ca(2009) 67-Orton Imagery Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from http://www.photography.ca/blog/2009/06/03/67-orton-imagery-the-orton-effect-interview-with-michael-orton-and-darwin-wiggett/ Ratcliff.T(2011) HDR Tutorial Retrieved Nov4,2011 from http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/ Wallack.T(2005) Evolution of Photos Creating Effects on Society Retrieved Nov4,2011 from http://www.seekfirst.com/node/57 7. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Bailey.J,Yang.H.Y,& Donnelly.S(2011) Impact of Digital Technology on Major Performing Arts Companies Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from www.ampag.com.au/LiteratureRetrieve.aspx?ID=88504 The authors discuss the main challenges facing the major performing arts(MPA) companies in the face of the increasing impact of digital technology on them. They find that the MPA companies are bound to benefit from business efficiencies offered by cloud computing, provided they rise up to the occasion and modernize to incorporate the possibilities provided by digital technology. The paper discusses the present trends in opera, dance, theatre and music and the various challenges in using digital technology in these performing arts, along with examples. BBC(2011) Kodak may face cash crisis if patent sales fail Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15585158 This BBC report discusses the present predicament of a 131-year old photography company which was one of the pioneers of photography and dominated the market in its heydays. The report points out that the reason for the present crisis faced by Eastman Kodak may be traced to the undue delay shown by the company in changing over to digital camera business from its traditional film business from the 1990s. Bellis,M(2011a) Timeline-History of Photography Retrieved Nov 4 ,2011 from http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/Photography.htm The author, a guide with the online database company about.com, lists out the major timelines that delineated the history of photography right from the pre-Christian era to its rapid technological advancement through the last two centuries. The contributions made by each of the various innovators find a mention here. Bellis,M (2011b) Daguerreotype Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from http://inventors.about.com/od/dstartinventions/a/Daguerreotype.htm The author, a guide with the online database company about.com discusses the first practical process of photography in the history of mankind and the man behind that invention which was made by an accident. The author points out that with this invention, the exposure time taking photos was cut down from eight hours to thirty minutes. Bellis,M(2011c) History of the Digital Camera Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bldigitalcamera.htm The author gives a comprehensive the history of digital cameras in this about.com article. The author finds that development of the digital photography technology was intimately connected not only to the major space age technological breakthroughs of the 1960s spearheaded by NASA, but also technology giants such as Sony. Brooke, B(n.d.)The Brief History of Digital Photography Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from http://www.bobbrooke.com/DigitalStudio/digitalhistory.htm The author discusses the advancement of digital photography starting from the 1960s’ invention of the charge-coupled device or CCD. The contributions made by Kodak, Sony, Logitech and Apple computers are also discussed. Chris(2006) The Orton Effect Retrieved Nov4,2011 from http://pcin.net/update/2006/11/01/the-orton-effect-digital-photography-tip-of-the-week/ The author discusses the Orton Effect which is used to create beautiful photographs using tools such as Adobe Photoshop. The technique of sandwiching two images, one out of focus and one in focuss is discussed. Nice.K, Wilson.T.V, & Gurevich.G,(2011) How Digital Cameras Work Retrieved Nov4, 2011 from http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cameras-photography/digital/digital-camera.htm The authors discuss in detail the working of the digital camera starting with the basics. Various sections deal with the CCDs, camera resolution, color capturing and algorithms and end with a summary of instructions on how to shoot digital photographs. Photography.ca(2009) 67-Orton Imagery Retrieved Nov 4,2011 from http://www.photography.ca/blog/2009/06/03/67-orton-imagery-the-orton-effect-interview-with-michael-orton-and-darwin-wiggett/ This article gives an expose on the technique of using Orton imagery as a tool to enhance the beauty of digital photographs. Ratcliff.T(2011) HDR Tutorial Retrieved Nov4,2011 from http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/ This tutorial by the author gives an introduction on High Dynamic Range, a technique used to create beautiful digital photographs. A collection of digital photographs created using the HDR technique is also contained in this work. Wallack.T(2005) Evolution of Photos Creating Effects on Society Retrieved Nov4,2011 from http://www.seekfirst.com/node/57 The author, who is a Chronicle Staff writer summarizes the effect of digital photography on society in this blog entry. The revolutionary impact of digital photography on society, politics and business is discuused in this write-up. Read More