Digital and social media as a platform and use of photography has revolutionised arts and the practice of photography. Nowadays everyone has easy access to taking photos and making content, literally at the ends of their fingertips. As a millennial/ Generation Z member, I grew up during this resurgence. I have photo albums from the first five years of my life, but the rest are stored somewhere on a hard drive, as soft copies became the cheaper and easier way to store data.

People who are offended by the fact that everyone can now create art and be a photographer, come from a place of privilege. Digital Slr’s have become so advanced that almost anyone can make videos and take photos at the best quality there is. decades ago only the rich could have such a privilege but anyone now who owns an iphone or even a cheap camera can do so much. I think that everyone being able to create is important and a necessary part of art. People can now showcase their talent and work for the world to see and be acknowledged for their work.

“Yet we are all not just photographers today: we have also become distributors, archivists and curators of the light traces immobilised on photo-sensitive surfaces. As Victor Burgin aptly points out, ‘the most 8 Joanna Zylinska revolutionary event in the recent history of photography is not the arrival of digital cameras as such, but rather the broadband connection of these cameras to the Internet – in efect turning every photograph on the Web into a potential frame in a boundless flm’ (2011: 144)”

This extract sheds light to how much our world has become globalised because of the resurgence of film and photography. Sometimes I do think that this can be a negative thing. For example, I can perfectly describe a sun rise but I can count with one hand how many times I have actually sat and seen one myself. I can tell you in detail all the places I want to see, as I have seen photos and videos showing every angle of it. I do not think it lessens my desire to see the world, but in a way, loses the magic of seeing it for the first time.

The internet has become my window to the global world. Recently I discovered the works of kiarostami, an Iranian film maker. His work has influenced me in many ways, a film with a budget of $2500 dollars back in the early 90’s made me feel more emotions that anything I have ever seen. He is a story teller, who died too young and was not recognised for his works but the web has allowed me to access his work and in a way make him live through his art. Being on the internet does make you live forever. I can access negatives of the first ever photographers and see the world through their eyes, even if they may not be a part of it now.