Adam Abel's essay on digital image making underlines three elements of digital technology that distinguish it from the conventional camera.  The LCD screen allows the operator to instantaneously shoot, look and learn, providing an intimate relationship between the image-maker and the subject.  The ability to manipulate has transferred greater authority to the creator, giving us all the ability to have a dark room inside our head.  And finally, digital has allowed all of us an easier access to self-expression.  Since it takes one snap of a button to make a beautiful image, “skill” does not have to get in the way of inspiration.

Susan Sontag' On Photography explores the impact that Photography has had on art, our conscience, and our understanding of knowledge.  Sontag discusses how its authority reaches into our everyday lives.  She raises our eyebrows by drawing parallels between the camera and power.  Like a Jekyll and Hyde, she explains that the image can memorialize and incriminate, document and manipulate, raise awareness and anesthetize.

Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida is a journey through the subconscious of a philosopher who dissects the “photograph” like a physchoanylist examines a patient.  From 20th Century masters to amateur family portraits, Barthe discusses that element which draws each of us to an image.  He describes that “general enthusiastic commitment”, that thing that keeps us interested as the “Studium”.  The “Punctum” of the image is the part of the image that grabs our Studium.  It “is that accident which pricks me.”  These two elements are responsible for keeping us gripped by what we see in the advertisement, on our friend’s camera, or sometimes in a gallery.