In Our Own Image

 

• What does Ritchin mean with the “fluidity of the digital”? Give an example of digital imaging/digital photography that exemplifies this.

Ritchin uses the potential dangers that come with digital photography to depict the meaning behind “fluidity of the digital”. With technology widely available today, we are able to alter images to depict completely different scenarios than what is candid. While photography was once able to be regarded as fact, a window into a moment in time, software today can alter and fabricate these moments into lies. One current technology that is proving to be more malicious than constructive is Deepfake. This technology allows a person’s likeness within any imagery to be replaced by that of someone different (ie. editing Brad Pitt’s face onto a random stranger). In malicious applications, celebrities have had images fabricated of them doing unsavory things, aiming to diminish their reputation. Ritchin’s “fluidity of the digital” concept is illustrated through these uses.

Malicious uses of digital altering softwares have proved the fears of Ritchin to be true. Where photography used to be a tool to communicate facts, unable to be altered, it is now only as reliable as word of mouth. In journalistic uses a photo is now only as trustworthy as the journalist, or anyone who it filtered through prior to being put in an article. The digitalization of photography has not diminished the utility of the technology, however it is now more important to criticize the applications in which it is being used.

• Reflect on the extent to which photography is capable of capturing reality; and compare it to other media (technology) (e.g. text, video, virtual reality, books). 

Photography is a unique technology that captures a moment in time through a purely imagerial sense. Other technologies take into account the bias of the person creating the media. For example any author will inherently subject the audience to some level of personal bias through documentation and writing. Books can be fully composed of facts, but it is then the reader’s job to understand the validity of these “facts” being presented, and take into account their own experience with the subject matter to form their own interpretation. Photography is unique in the sense that it allows a candid representation of the subject being documented. This is not to say that it doesn’t also come with drawbacks, however. A photographer can easily manipulate the scene being photographed to tell a different story than the truth, and digital technology allows anyone to alter images to a realistic degree. The capability of capturing reality, however, is still there, and it is ultimately the photographer whether they will choose to do so.