New digital age

Modern media expands the scope and reach of consumer activity by users interacting wherever they like, whenever they like.

“Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire.” (Sontag, 2006, p.5)

The latest high tech trends within photography include smart phones with a high definition camera, digital cameras, sharing and uploading pics instantaneously and iPads. These main technologies have altered the way everyday users are able to connect and communicate through photographs and images. Susan Sontag’s theory displays how the vast changing notion of photography has allowed amateurs to share photos of their experiences. In the era when taking photographs required an expensive contraption – to operate you were usually the toy of the clever, or the wealthy. It was inaccessible to the everyday person, photography then was merely a work of art. Sontag explains that, “Since there were then no professional photographers in the early 1840’s, there could not be amateurs either, and taking photographs has no clear social use; it was gratuitous, that is, an artistic activity…”(Sontag, 2006, p.5) Now during the 21^st century, it is common for an ordinary mundane person to capture a photograph and relay it onto social media. Sontag claims that, “Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing – which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art. It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power” (Sontag, 2006, p.8)