Jurgenson’s book is the culmination of his thinking about the rise of social photography, written from within and outside academia and industry, and documents this transitional moment in the evolution of photography. A still image provides an opportunity to ponder, take in detail, or, as Emile Zola said: “In my view, you cannot claim to have really seen something until you have photographed it”. Video, on the other hand, demands more than just time, it also directs our attention, and guides us through the experience it depicts. To take a photograph rather than a video is an explicit choice that screams “stop!” Video, by contrast, has limitations that stem from more closely mimicking how experiences unfolds. In this way, the photo suggests knowing; the video, observing. Collectively and individually, in different ways and to varying degrees, we struggle with personal and social changes that come with redefining privacy, memory, death, time, spaces, and everything else social media is currently challenging. We cannot understand photography or social media looking at the deeper impulse that fuels both-the desire for life in its documented form. Annotation ©2019 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
A set of bold theoretical reflections on how the social photo has remade our world.
With the rise of the smart phone and social media, cameras have become ubiquitous, infiltrating nearly every aspect of social life. The glowing camera screen is the lens through which many of us seek to communicate our experience. But our thinking about photography has been slow to catch-up; this major fixture of everyday life is still often treated in the terms of art or journalism.
In The Social Photo, social theorist Nathan Jurgenson develops bold new ways of understanding photography in the age of social media and the new kinds of images that have emerged: the selfie, the faux-vintage photo, the self-destructing image, the food photo. Jurgenson shows how these devices and platforms have remade the world and our understanding of ourselves within it.
