|
|
The historical photograph in the digital age.
by Loes van Harrevelt
Digital technology is within everyone’s reach – from cameras to mobile telephones. Technological developments not only influence the production of new images, but also make an enormous change to the way that museums and archives distribute and present historical photography. The past is increasingly being opened up digitally and images play an important role in this. From your easy chair you can view billions of digitalised historical sources, including prints, postcards, photographs and films. The threshhold is low, comparisons easier to make and alternatives for icons that have been reproduced for decades and decades are there for the taking. But what does the historical image mean in an environment purely consisting of pixels?
Netherlands digital photo collection
The large-scale national digitalisation project The Memory of the Netherlands started in the period 2000-2004. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sciences financed the project and the Royal Library coordinated the digitalisation activities. Among the fifty digitalised collections are several collections of photographs, such as the commissions for the Rijksmuseum’s department of Dutch history and the Stork company collection. In addition to this national digitalisation project, municipal archives are important wholesalers in digital images. See the website Beeldbankenstartpagina for a broad insight into the amount of work that has alrady been carried out. After the first major wave of digitalisation, the discussion concerning content has now commenced.
selection
Behind every digital image lies a long story: from production and use of the actual image to acquisition by an institution and eventual selection for digitalisation and processing. The preparation, production and long-term preservation of digital files requires major investments. For these reasons, selection is a necessary part of the preparation of digitalisation projects. By no means does the public thus gain access to complete archives or collections.
shoebox
Selection criteria depend on the policy of each institution. While the photo-historical value will weigh heavily for a museum of photography, a municipal archive may be more likely to choose documentary images. But the preservation of vulnerable and less accessible objects such as glass negatives may also be a criterium, as may making objects from geographically dispersed collections centrally accessible. Finally, commercial and publicity motives, topicality and educational aims may also play a role in the selection process. A mixture of all these arguments determines whether a picture leaves the shoebox and begins a new life in a dynamic environment of zeros and ones.
telegram from a loved one
In a digital environment it is unfortunately all too quickly forgotten that an image is merely a representation of a tangible object. Anyone who has ever done historical research will know how much pleasure there is to be had with a well-filled archive box. Most photographs are to be found in a context, such as an album, or an old envelope with notes. The researcher often encounters more historical material than expected, such as ration cards in a wartime album or a telegram from a loved one. Thanks to the original photograph, related historical sources and the authentic form of presentation, the viewer experiences the material very differently than on a screen.
pinhole
The material context provides an indication of the historical function of the image. Folds, tears and finger prints are silent witnesses of frequent use. A frame or pinhole indicates that the photograph hung on a wall, a rubber stamp refers to publication in a newspaper. Albums dictate a story line and a specific way of viewing, usually within a social structure of family and friends.
from negative to publication
The collection of the Nederlands Fotomuseum is exceptionally rich in unexpected content-related connections. Besides photographs, you can find letters, diaries, contact prints and objects. Thanks to the presence of virtually complete archives it is possible to reconstruct the genesis of an image. For the national digitalisation project The Memory of the Netherlands, for example, the museum has digitalised all its negatives relating to a specific historical theme. Icons of such historical occurrences as the Flood Disaster and the Winter of Starvation have been digitalised as complete reportages in which we can see how the photographer set to work. The image thus gains in meaning and becomes more than just a ‘picture’ in an image bank.
photobooks and albums
Digitalisation demands more than just laying a photograph on a scanner. The introduction of Photobooks and albums on this website enables online connections to be made between negatives, (contact-)prints, dummies and publications. Justice is hence done to complex archive structures and intrinsic relationships.
May 2006
Loes van Harrevelt (b. 1970) is acting head of Collections at the Nederlands Fotomuseum since November 2005. Previously, since 2003, she was a curator at the Fotomuseum after having spent three years as coordinator of collection management. She has been a member of the board of the Nederlands Fotogenootschap since 2005 and edited the society’s magazine since 1999. In Paper or pixels? she calls for attention to be paid to the information that is in danger of disappearing when the contents of an archive box are digitalised.
|
|
|
See also
Digitale verzameling van illustraties, foto's, teksten, films en audiofragmenten uit Nederlandse collecties. Startpagina met verzameling weblinks naar beeldbanken. |
