adopted laws requiring that clearly distinguishable
symbols signifying ‘‘montage’’ accompany all sig-
nificantly manipulated photographs. Despite these
movements and regulations, however, actual prac-
tice continues to be problematic—no presumption
can now be made that any magazine cover image or
image in an advertisement has not been manipu-
lated. Even with ‘‘editorial’’ photographs, many
cases of manipulation continue to be revealed.
A third area of concern in digital photography
has been image permanence. Many digital printing
technologies were never designed to produce any-
thing but short-lived products. Early inkjet color
prints often faded in a matter of months, to the
disappointment of their producers. The printing
technologies have matured substantially so that
many digitally produced prints can now be
expected to last at least as long as their traditional
photographic counterparts, if they are kept under
the right conditions. (Ink-based prints, especially,
tend to be more susceptible to moisture, ultraviolet
light, and environmental contaminants than are
traditional silver-based photographs). Related to
image permanence is the issue of data permanence
and accessibility. Many digital image files encoded
earlier in the development of digital photography
are unreadable by current computers, and this
trend towards obsolescence of file formats and sto-
rage-media technologies is likely to continue. In
addition, the storage media are susceptible to even-
tual physical degradation, even breakdown. These
are problems that the still-young practice of digital
photography will have to solve.
In 2003, for the first time, more digital cameras
than film cameras were sold in the world, and East-
man Kodak announced that it would no longer
engage in film research. It appears that almost all
photography will soon be fully or partially digital
photography.
BlaiseTobia
Seealso:Burson, Nancy; Camera: Digital; Develop-
ing Processes; Film; Gursky, Andreas; Photographic
‘‘Truth’’; Wall, JeffFurther Reading
Aaland, Mikkel, and Rudolf Berger.Digital Photography.
New York: Random House, 1992.
Amelunxen, Hubertus, et al., eds.Photography after Photo-
graphy: Memory and Representation in the Digital Age.
Munich: G&B Arts, 1996.
Ciaglia, Joseph.Introduction to Digital Photography. Upper
Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002.
Coleman, A D.The Digital Evolution: Visual Communica-
tion in the Electronic Age, Essays, Lectures and Interviews
1967–1998, Tucson, Arizona: Nazraeli Press, 1998.
Cope, Peter.,The Digital Photographer’s Pocket Encyclope-
dia. Silver Pixel Press, 2002.
Druckery, Timothy, ed.Iterations: The New Image. New
York: International Center of Photography, 1993.
Mitchell, William J.The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in
the Post-Photographic Era. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1992.
Ritchin, Fred.In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in
Photography. Millerlon, New York: Aperture, 1990.
Metamorphoses: Photography in the Electronic Age. Aper-
ture #136, 1994.RINEKE DIJKSTRA
Dutch
Rineke Dijkstra’s Beaches (1992–1996) comprise
large-scale, color portraits of adolescents standing
in front of the sea. Dijkstra began the project in the
Netherlands, and continued to photograph in a vari-
ety of locations: America, Belgium, Britain, Croatia,
Poland, and the Ukraine. The contrast between her
American and European subjects is subtle and
poignant. The differences that distinguish the
young people are manifested in their clothing, their
expressions, and their body language. For each
photograph, Dijkstra provides a location and a
date, and these confirm our suspicions and cultural
stereotypes; the Eastern European children have less
fashionable clothes, the American kids are better
groomed and more practiced at posing like models.
Nevertheless, what is most striking about these por-
traits is that, despite the obvious differences in
appearance among the adolescents, they are unitedDIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY