www.fotokritik.de
Texte zur zeitgenössischen Fotografie und digitalen Bildkunst
Online image hosting started from the idea of providing a new form of album for snapshot photographers; it was discovered as a new form of global gallery by more ambitious amateurs, and even if the operating companies still think that this is what they provide, more and more people use the service in ways that the providers never even thought of. Collaboratively creating knowledge turned a picture pool into a social sculpture. The community features are for many participants now the most important aspect of their participation. This is true both for special interest groups and for people producing content of a wider interest. Average snapshot photographers are to be found next to commercial eBay sellers, semi-professional travel photographers, street art collectors, pornographers, real estate dealers, supporters of football clubs, bird watchers, trainspotters and nearly any other group you may or may not have heard of, including people who love Currywurst. Many of these sub-communities overlap and mingle.
The vast majority of people who share their photographs with the rest of us via online hosting sites never published anything at all before there was this kind of service, and maybe many of them don't even think of it as publishing. Their photographs are public however, and in this new extension of public space we can observe how new social structures and new forms of information management emerge. This is by the way not only true for photographs but also for video, music, and writing, often produced by the very same people in a dual role. The majority of these people do not know each other personally, but they meet in the virtual world in order to pursue their individual and collective studies. They produce enormous amounts of photographs and in sharing them they increase their knowledge both about their favorite subjects — and about photography itself.
23.08.2008
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