The Digital Path (ca. 1990–)

Abstract

This chapter offers a brief historical overview to show how much the infrastructure at home for snapshot and domestic photography has departed from the Kodak Path. The main components of the film-based infrastructure were the camera, the film roll, the external photo-finishing service, the paper prints, and albums. This simplicity has given way to heterogeneous complexity. Not only are the main components for digital photography different, but also the ways in which they can be combined are numerous. The digital domestic photography infrastructure also shows that, in comparison to the Kodak Path, there are now new business stakeholders in snapshot and domestic photography: Domestic photography has become predominantly part of information and communications technology, and most of the businesses involved in people’s photographic practices are from that industry. In contrast to the Kodak Path, there is no dominant business model here for making a profit on snapshot photography. The business stakeholders are as numerous and heterogeneous as the technologies involved.