Abstract
In this paper, it is argued that it is given not only to artists but also to citizen- photographers, both professional and non-professional, to make a new world order. Rather than being unreflective and unpolitical snappers on autopilot, citizen-photographers help create what Jacques Ranciere calls a “new landscape of the possible.” Instead of rehearsing standard criticisms of photography, especially criticisms of representations of people in pain, the paper suggests looking at such representations in search for new ways through which subjects of photography may exert political influence. The paper emphasizes that in the digital age the paradigmatic subject position is being alone together—being spatially apart from but virtually a part of a larger community. It is through visual/virtual networks and in communication with others that the individual may exert political influence. Digital technologies, it is argued, offer an ever-growing number of people the chance to become agents of their own photography rather than being subjects of the photography of others. Such photography may help to disclose and denaturalize established positions as well as to change and diversify discursive patterns.
