The book explores the transformative phase of photography as it shifts from analog to digital technology, likening this evolution to the early days of silent film. It highlights how new inventions are revolutionizing the ways photographs are taken, manipulated, and shared, creating a chaotic yet exciting landscape. This transition not only enhances photographic techniques but also merges photography and videography, allowing for a seamless integration of sound, still, and moving images within a unified digital medium.
This book updates the manifesto for an audio photography technology and practice while addressing design history, the social shaping of technology, and innovation management. It highlights the differing timescales of design and innovation and the evolution of design ideas across various research groups, companies, and application areas. The concept of capturing photographs with sound, proposed a decade ago, remains underutilized. In this new edition of the seminal 2004 work on audio photography, the author explores the reasons behind this stagnation. Through citations and related commercial products, the book illustrates significant advancements in understanding sound's role in photography and numerous design experiments that support audiovisual storytelling as a new media form. It narrates the “long nose of innovation” and emphasizes the importance of patience and persistence in the tech industry. To reinforce this message, five original chapters from 2004 are re-published, detailing the invariant properties of ambient musical, talking, and conversational photographs, along with playback possibilities from both paper and screen. This work will appeal to researchers and designers of new media systems and experiences, as well as innovation scholars and managers seeking a decade-long case study of innovation in action.
