The Culling of Photographic Images

Abstract

A cull of images is coming, an automated decimation, which will transform the ontology of the image once again. Google announced that from June 1, 2021, they will stop the free back up of compressed “high” quality photos. The significance of this development is hard to overestimate. At this point, any connection of smartphone photographs to the original medium of photography and associated practices will finally be fully severed. In the recent decade, substantial discussions about networked images accounted for some of the core principles of image operations today1: