From rags to riches: Democratisation of the photographic art

The democratisation of photography has gone hand-in-hand with the advent of the devices used for the ubiquitous production of images speaking to an individual’s engagement with the world. As the various photographic formats have changed over the years, largely aligned with the impact of the medium/cameras used, it’s interesting to note how the different forms of photography; social, constructed, manipulated and even commercial, are now largely facilitated by the online space, and how this has introduced a new universal immediacy and a renewed sense of intermediality to the art. This serves to highlight further that the photographic medium is less important than the underlying social component it facilitates. In other words, it’s all about the relationship between the subject matter, the artist and how the two provide a unique perspective on our world. This paper will explore how ‘the image’ in the digital age has enhanced the possibilities of this unique form of unfettered communication, particularly in this era of the ‘new-media’ phenomena. It will do this by investigating, visually, the corporeality of perception in visual communications and how this has shifted our attention from the ‘interaction of media' towards the ‘interaction with media'. This paper will then interrogate the idea of ‘media borders' and contextualise this discussion through an analysis of some common examples that serve to blur an individual’s perception between media and reality; demonstrating that the image is being perceived not just as a form of representation, but as an environment used to ‘augment' reality.