Abstract

More and more it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern photo reality from digital reality. Digital imagery is revolutionising photography and challenging preconceived notions of this art form. Over the years, photography has been viewed metaphorically as a window on the world and on the past. No longer however, is the creation of photographic imagery reliant upon its intrinsic relationship with reality. Using computer technology original photographic material can be altered, manipulated and seamlessly combined with other fictional imagery without obvious detection and with relative ease. The proliferation of digital imaging is producing two apparent crises for photography. The first is the perceived threat to photography, involving the fear that traditional photographic processes, methods and product will be superseded by manipulated digital images passing themselves off as real photographs. Added to these growing concerns for photography's longevity, is the prospect that viewers will no longer believe m photography as a deliverer of objective truth and that the medium itself will lose its power as a 'privileged conveyer of information'(Batchen, 1994,p.47). The second crisis pertains to ethical concerns that these digital simulations raise: copyright, moral rights and artistic integrity.