Digital Cameras, Personal Photography and the Reconfiguration of Spatial Experiences

Аннотация

Digital technology has transformed the nature of photography and its cultural significance. This article addresses how the use of portable digital cameras and the subsequent exploitation of personal photos as major user-generated content on the Internet have transformed the cultural meaning of framing, taking, displaying,compiling, and reviewing photographs. It especially focuses on how digital photographic practices have changed as people are increasingly choosing to carry digital cameras with them at all times and to compile their output on the Web, as well as how these practices have affected people’s spatial experiences with and within the physical world. Based on qualitative interview data collected from nineteen Korean digital camera users, this study explores how personal digital photography, as a tool to register personal experiences in physical space as well as a currency for communicating in digital space, has affected people’s sense of physical place and thus has contributed to the ongoing hybridization of physical and digital experiences.