approached 20 megapixels and view-camera scan
backs approached 100 megapixels. Inkjet printers
were developed using increasingly smaller dots and
more colors of ink, essentially matching analog
photo printing methods. ‘‘Writeable’’ CDs became
a common medium of digital image storage and
exchange; other kinds of portable storage media
evolved from 44 Mb Syquest cartridges to 2 Gb
(gigabyte) JAZ cartridges.
One of the qualitative changes that the digital
age has brought to photography is that of the mass
distribution of images by electronic, rather than
print, means. Initially, CD-ROMs were popular,
but the rapidly increasing transmission speed of
the Internet soon made the WorldWide Web the
dominant mode. Mosaic, developed at the Uni-
versity of Illinois and publicly released in 1993,
was the first Web ‘‘browser’’ capable of displaying
photographic images; subsequent browsers fea-
tured increasingly sophisticated image capa-
bilities. Within just a few years, Web-based
photographic displays, galleries, auctions, and so
on, were quite common.
The first widely acclaimed exhibition of digital
fine-art photography was ‘‘Iterations: The New
Image.’’ Curated by Timothy Druckery and
Charles Stainback, it was mounted in 1993 at Mon-
tage ‘93 (an ‘‘International Festival of the Image’’)
in Rochester, New York, and in 1994 at the Inter-
national Center of Photography in New York City.
Included among its artists were MANUAL (a col-
laboration between Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom),
Michael Brodsky, Carol Flax, Esther Parada, Jim
Pomeroy and several others. 1994 also saw the
launching of the exhibitionMetamorphoses: Photo-
graphy in the Electronic Age, curated by the Aper-
ture Foundation and including Barbara Kasten,
Peter Campus, David Byrne, Pedro Meyer and
Nancy Burson, among others. It opened at the
Fashion Institute of Technology in New York
City and then traveled in the United States to
Houston, Tampa, Philadelphia, and San Jose, and
then to Helsinki, Finland, and several other venues.
These exhibitions featured images that displayed
considerable digital manipulation. By the end of
the decade, virtually all large-scale color photo-
graphic prints being displayed in galleries or
museums were digitally produced. Sometimes the
images were obviously manipulated (Patrick Naga-
tani, Aziz + Cucher); sometimes the possibility of
manipulation lurked just below the surface (Jeff
Wall, Andreas Gursky). Often, however, the digital
nature of the print wasn’t an issue at all, as digital
technologies were increasingly seen as simply
another means of producing ‘‘photographs.’’
Concerns raised by digital photography
Along with the easy duplication and distribution
made possible by digital imaging technologies and
the Internet came serious concerns about property
rights. While no traditional photographer would
freely distribute his or her negatives, the digital
files being made widely accessible, especially if
they were of high resolution, could be seen as
‘‘source code’’ for endless digital copies and even
for unauthorized prints. Although there have been
ongoing revisions of copyright law and other
efforts to protect the authors of images (and other
creative materials) in the digital era, these have not
been fully successful. Other steps that have been
taken include restricting the resolution of digitally
distributed images to levels well below the quality
of the originals and embedding theoretically unre-
movable data within image files (‘‘watermarks’’—
both visible and invisible) that would clearly indi-
cate authorship.
An even more serious concern associated with
digital photographic technologies—arising virtual-
ly at their inception—has been that of veracity.
While traditional photographs have always been
susceptible to a variety of manipulations that
could distort or modify their apparent meaning,
photography has, by and large, enjoyed the popu-
lar assumption of truthfulness. On the other hand,
digital imaging technologies are widely known for
facilitating virtually effortless and undetectable
manipulation of the image. In the most extreme
case—that of digitally captured photographs—
there is not even the equivalent of the original
negative to which there might be recourse in the
case of claimed manipulation.
Through the 1980s, a number of infamous cases
of photographic manipulation came to public
attention, including the moving of the Giza Pyra-
mids in aNational Geographiccover photo, the
implied presence of two celebrity actors in one
room in aNewsweekimage when in fact they were
photographed separately in New York and Los
Angeles, and the placing of one celebrity’s head
on another’s body in a cover photo ofT.V. Guide.
In each of these cases, the publication claimed that
the context of use did not imply—and therefore did
not require—careful adherence to visual truthful-
ness. Significant movements arose, often involving
photojournalists, news organizations, and public
interest groups, seeking to establish clear guidelines
for permissible use of image manipulation in the
media. The importance of maintaining ‘‘truthful-
ness’’ as a quality of the documentary image was
widely endorsed. Several European countriesDIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY