Fred Ritchin

Talk Description

How has photography (and other media) been transformed by the digital? What are new ways of thinking about photography beyond what was possible with analog media? How can these new possibilities be useful to artists and documentarians? What is the future for the professional in a world with sixty billion photographs on Facebook? What are the new problems that the digital poses, such as issues of credibility and a glut of imagery? Are we entering a post-photographic era? If so, what does it mean for the impact and usefulness of the photographic image in society, and for democracy?

Biography

Fred Ritchin is professor of Photography & Imaging at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He is author of After Photography (2008, W. W. Norton, translated into French, Korean and Spanish). His first book on the impact of the digital, In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography, was published in 1990. Ritchin has been picture editor of The New York Times Magazine, executive editor of Camera Arts magazine, and founded the Photojournalism and Documentary Photography educational program at the International Center of Photography. In 1999, with Carole Naggar, he co-founded PixelPress, an organization collaborating with humanitarian organizations on media projects. His website with photographer Gilles Peress, 'Bosnia: Uncertain Paths to Peace,' was nominated by The New York Times for a Pulitzer Prize in public service in 1997.