William Allen at Arkansas State University with
hypertext links to hundreds of individuals interested
in the history of the medium. Professor Andrew
Davidhazy at the Rochester Institute of Technology
posts a site with links to the many areas of photo-
graphy history in which he has an interest. TheMid-
ley History of Photographysite is a collection of
articles and unpublished materials by R.D. Wood
on the history of early photography. Early photo-
graphy is also well documented, including sites
maintained byMaison Nice ́phore Nie ́pce,The First
Photograph site posted by the Harry Ransom
Research Centre of the University of Texas, Austin,
and theDaguerreian Society. Mike Ware’sAlterna-
tive Photography Pagescontains an encyclopedia of
historical processes while a single process is covered
in exemplary detail onStanford University’s Albumen
site. Examples of other specialized histories include
the late Peter Palmquist’sWomen in Photography
site, the extensiveHistory of Photography in Japan,
and the detailed corporate timeline published by
Kodak on its website. Organizations such as The
Royal Photographic Society, The Photographic His-
torical Society of Rochester, New York, and la Soci-
e ́te ́franc ̧aise de photographie provide useful portals,
not only to their own members but also to other
photography organizations.
Specialized interests in photography are also well
served by the internet. Virtually any genre in pho-
tography can be quickly accessed through formal or
informal groups’ postings on the web. Sites for archi-
tectural photography, aerial and panoramic photo-
graphy, glamour and fashion photography, and
industrial photography are particularly prominent.
As it has evolved into a marketing tool, the in-
ternet has also become a primary means for the buy-
ing, selling, and trading of antique cameras, both in
the large auction sites such as eBay and in more
specialized sites. The German site,Classic Cameras,
provides an introduction to the development of the
camera along with worldwide links to individuals
buying, selling, and trading old cameras. Two other
sites also offer this latter function as well as links to
other classic camera sites:The Classic Camera Web-
siteand Don Colucci’sAntique and Classic Camera
Website. A singularly non-commercial escape from
the online antique camera world is the virtual tour of
Canon’s Camera Museumin Japan.
In less than a decade, online photography has
evolved its own unique forms of photographic exhi-
bition. Fritz Nordengren’s site,Behind the Viewfin-
der—A Year in the Life of Photojournalism,isan
exchange of work and ideas by ten diverse photo-
journalists who, along with Nordengren, engaged in
a very public communication beginning in January
of 1998. Sites likePhoto.netandQiang Li’s Photo
Critique Forum, in addition to offering familiar
commercial portal links, offer a forum whereby
individuals critique one another’s photographs.
Finding photographic images on the internet
became increasingly easy, as most search engines,
notably Google, created special image-only searches.
Searches turn up both fine arts photographs and any
number of amateur postings, creating unique ‘‘vir-
tual galleries’’ with every search.
The sum total of the services made possible by
the convergence between photography and the in-
ternet has yielded a profound change in how the
visual world is accessed by that one sixth of the
world’s people with access to the internet. It’s clear
that online photography has contributed to the so-
called digital divide, the growing difference in
informational access between that one sixth of the
population and the five sixths without computer
access. The computer has become a kind of gate-
keeper for social inclusion, and it will likely be the
work of the twenty-first century to first determine
and then moderate the computer’s shaping of the
visible world.
RenateWickens
Seealso: Archives; Camera: Digital; Corbis/Bett-
mann; Digital Photography; Life Magazine; Profes-
sional OrganizationsFurther Reading
Berners-Lee, Tim.Weaving the Web: The Original Design
and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web. San Fran-
cisco: Harper, 1999.
Druckrey, Timothy, ed.Electronic Culture: Technology and
Visual Representation. New York: Aperture, 1996.
Howard, Philip N., and Steve Jones, eds.Society Online:
The Internet in Context. Thousand Oaks, California:
Sage Press, 2004.
Kember, Suan.Virtual Anxiety: Photography, New Technol-
ogies and Subjectivity. Manchester, New York: Univer-
sity of Manchester Press, 1998.
Lister, Martin, ed.The Photographic Image in Digital Cul-
ture. London: Routledge, 1995.
Mitchell, William J.The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in
the Post-Photographic Era. Cambridge, Mass: MIT
Press, 1992.
Warschauer, Mark. Technology and Social Inclusion:
Rethinking the Digital Divide. Cambridge, Mass: MIT
Press, 2003.
Whittaker, Jason.The Cyberspace Handbook. London:
Routledge, 2004.Websites
(Accessed December, 2004)
Albumenhttp://albumen.stanford.edu/INTERNET AND PHOTOGRAPHY, THE