“Writing with light”: World Photography Day

Visual culture is an intrinsic part of our daily lives and photographs are just a click away. However, the ease and speed of taking photographs is a recent phenomenon. In 1975, the North American company Kodak sold the first digital camera, while the cell phone with the device for capturing digital images was launched in 1999 by the Japanese company Kyocera Visual. 

Why do we celebrate World Photography Day on August 19th? On this date, in 1839, the French government after acquiring the patent for the daguerreotype (designed by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, based on the method developed by Nicéphore Niépce) officially announced that photography, characterized as a permanent means of capturing image, had been invented. The creation of the commemorative date took place 30 years ago and was an initiative of Indian photographer O.P. Sharma.

Sally Stein, professor at the Department of Art History (University of California, USA), points out that photography plays an important role in the way we apprehend and (re)signify the past (and the present), constituting an integral part of the “architecture of everyday life” (Stein, 1981). The author highlights the transformations that occurred in the processes of capturing images (black and white/colored, analog/digital), and how the image helped shape material culture. Currently, given the innovations promoted by Artificial Intelligence, other challenges and questions arise about authenticity and copyright, among many others.

However, regardless of the focus, photographs constitute a relevant component in the ways we represent the world, and ourselves. What we include, or exclude, the angles, shapes and textures we choose to highlight, as well as the fragment of the moment we set out to reveal, offer vast material on personal and collective narratives that “write with light” our memories and world views.

References: 

Stein, S. A. (1981). The Composite Photographic Image and the Composition of Consumer Ideology. Art Journal, 41(1), 39–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.1981.10792444. Disponível online, 01 agosto, 2014.

Lum, K. From analog to digital: A consideration of photographic truth in Everything is relevant: Writings on art and life, 1991-2018. Concordia University Press, 2020, pp. 213–23. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvwvr2jd.37. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.