Photographing digitally, thinking analogically: the "Black Box" of numerical photography.

• Grant number: 10/04201-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: August 01, 2010
• End date: April 30, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications
• Principal Investigator: Arlindo Ribeiro Machado Neto
• Grantee: Isabella Chianca Bessa Ribeiro do Valle
• Host Institution: Pró-Reitoria de Pós-Graduação (PRPG). Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present research intends to verify the conscience degree of nowaday's photographers about digital media and if the migration from analogical to digital is happening with awareness of the changes. The purpose is to investigate if and how photographing has been nowadays limited in its artistic and communicative potential by the fact that professional photographers don't know the real process of digital photography. Under the explanation that there is great familiarization and interactivity with the digital programs and equipments, the usage of concepts that are still based on the analogical photography process pushes photographers off from dominating the numerical images they handle with. Talking about professional photographers, does it interferes on the construction of a digital photographical language, limiting the creative possibilities of action and communication? Starting from the idea that it is necessary to know well how the equipment we use works so that we can go beyond the limits imposed by a superficial knowledge, this work aims to identify how inadequate signs permeate the digital universe and pushes photographers off from penetrating the "black box". It is necessary to think about the problems related to this reality and its consequences, and also clarifying about the problems related to how digital photography really happens. On that account, the steps of the digital formation of photography will be analyzed under the semiotic point of view, since the capture (digital photographic equipment) until its processing in computers (programs) and how the interface between the device and its relation with the user happens.