Digital photography - it's more than a technical revolution, it's a political one too
By Robert Caston - Jul 01, 2009
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We all know we are in the midst of a revolution in photography. Kodachrome is gone. A 1-megapixel camera is no longer a sensation. You can now shoot 500 high-quality images on a memory card the size of a stamp.
And if that wasn't incredible enough, with one click, you can also transmit those images to a friend on the other side of the globe.
But there's a deeper revolution taking place as a result of this new technology. Nowhere was this more evident than with the recent protests in Iran.
Students on the streets didn't just have a camera cellphone in their hands. They had a sense of power - the power to show the rest of the world they weren't going to settle for a bogus election. A bogus election where millions of paper ballots were counted in a matter of hours and a dinosaur of a tyrant named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was kept in office.
The protesters were determined to let their overseas friends on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube know that not everyone in Iran was supportive of the old regime.
Thus began the "Twitter Revolution." Eyewitness accounts from marchers who flocked to the streets in support of opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi blasted across the internet. As one Iranian wrote, "We students do not chant death to America. We want the American constitution."
WeSay is proud to hear that "Twitter Pics" and digital photographs were a large part of that uprising. (By the way that's our mission - to give a voice to citizens through photography.)
One of our members in Dallas sent us a gallery of photos showing Iranians demonstrating in support of their countrymen.
While things have settled somewhat in Iran, that country and the world have changed and won't be going back. Others will now see that they have this strength, this capacity to not only document oppression, but to disseminate what they record to the world, in an instant.
If you don't think this is a powerful weapon, then take a look at this image of a lone Iranian woman standing up to police. She's not only demanding her rights, she risking her life because she knows the rest of the world is watching...and standing behind her.
