Photography and Media

Photography turned fleeting scenes into objects you could hold, share, and keep. This category compares the chemistry-based methods of capturing and storing images with the electronic ones that followed, and it also covers the ways written and printed material reaches an audience.

Film Cameras vs Digital Cameras looks at light-sensitive material versus electronic sensors. Photo Albums vs Cloud Photo Libraries asks what it means to preserve memories on a shelf or on a remote service. Printing Presses vs Digital Publishing Platforms follows the long path from metal type to on-screen pages. Across all three, the recurring theme is how the cost of making and copying an image or a page shapes what people bother to record.