Artists
Digital photography
by Joan Fontcuberta
by Joan Fontcuberta
Introduction
In 1981, Sony announced the prototype of a new reflex camera in which conventional film was substituted for a magnetic disc. Although this camera would not reach the market until some years later, the Mavica, anagram of ¨Magnetic Video Camera¨, opened the new horizon of digital photography and pointed towards possible artistic uses. In fact, within the field of applied photography, certain electronic treatments were already in use. For example, graphics agencies commonly sent scanned photographs (telephotography), while in photomechanics, the photoliths were no longer obtained by optical reproduction of an original, but rather by way of scanners and programs that made possible all types of manipulation. From these initial ¨electronic laboratories¨ designed for the graphic arts came the programs for processing photographic material, of which Photoshop, the earliest version of which appeared in 1985, would become the most popular.
