文字已死，会拍照者得天下

    2013年春年，有两张数码照片在网络上引起了轰动。第一张摄于2005年，画面中是人头攒动的梵蒂冈教廷广场，人们在教皇若望•保禄二世的葬礼上举行悼念活动。这张照片是从后面拍摄的，满眼望去，都是翘首向前看的背影，只有照片的右下角，有一支孤零零的翻盖手机对准一座阳台进行拍照。第二张照片几乎是在同一个地方拍摄的，画面中是正在欢迎新加冕的方济各教皇的人群。这两张照片几乎一模一样，区别只有一点。在2013年的这张照片中，大大小小的屏幕汇成了光晕的海洋，人们高高举起自己的iPhone、iPad和安卓手机，见证这历史性的一刻。

    拍摄第一张照片和第二张照片之间的短短几年，发生了一些影响深远的事情：物美价廉、操作简便的照相机已经进入了千家万户。根据一位分析师的估算，在2012年生产的智能手机和平板电脑中，大约有10亿部都带有照相功能。这些摄像头让几十亿人都成了摄影师，只要学会最基本的操作，就能捕捉和分享任何影像。人们不需要懂得照相机的工作原理，不需要知道什么是光圈，也不用学习怎样在暗房里冲洗胶卷。摄影不再是专业摄影师的专利，大家需要做的只是点开相机，然后拍照、分享。

    根据华尔街证券分析师和投行家玛丽•米克尔今年5月28日发布的《年度互联网趋势报告》，如今我们每天都会在互联网上上传、分享18亿张照片。这样海量的照片已经彻底重新定义了“摄影”的含义。图片再也不是什么稀罕东西，因为它们实在是太多了。照片曾经一度被视为艺术被人珍藏，或者被当作记忆的定格被人储存，但现在它已经成了一种新的语言，一种人人都懂、人人都会用的画面语言。近年来，我们已经看到了一种新的视觉词汇的兴起。除了照片，还有表情符号、视频片段、GIF动画和其它图片形式，它们已经可以取代很多过去我们需要依赖文字来表述的东西。

    这种大规模的转变以前在历史上也出现过。一直到离我们不算很远的历史时期，读书写字都是专业人士的工作，只有一小部分受过教育的抄经人和宗教人士的文化程度达到了能够翻译宗教典籍和制订契约的程度。15世纪，欧洲人如果能拼写出自己的名字，就算是识字了，但是有80%的人都拼写不出自己的名字。然而随着印刷机的出现，不到一个世纪，人们的阅读量越来越大，识字的人已经可以用笔墨表达复杂的含义。识字者的大规模增加直接促进了科学、教育和艺术的进步。现在我们在图片上也进入了一个类似的时期，智能手机和互联网所起的作用正如当年的活字印刷术，而些这些工具现在仍然处于发展的早期。

    In the spring of 2013, two digital photos became an Internet sensation. The first, taken in 2005, depicts a crowd gathered at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II’s funeral. It is shot from behind—backs of heads turned up, and in the bottom right corner, a lone flip phone pointing toward a balcony. The second, taken from an analogous spot in 2013, depicts another throng welcoming the new leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. The photos are nearly identical except for one defining feature. In the 2013 shot, a sea of screens—iPhones, iPads, Androids—rise up above the heads of onlookers, offering a powerful permanent form of witness.

    Something profound has happened in the time between that first photograph and the second: cheap, dead-simple cameras have crept into everything. By one analyst’s estimate, a billion cameras were added to smartphones and tablets manufactured in 2012. All these cameras have made billions of people into photographers, able to capture and share images of anything with a basic technical proficiency. No one needs to know how a camera works. No one needs to know what an f-stop is, or how to manipulate darkroom chemicals. No one has to be a good photographer to take good photos. One only has to point, shoot, and share.

    According to Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report, released May 28, we currently upload and share 1.8 billion photos every single day. This sheer abundance has redefined the nature of the photograph entirely. Pictures are no longer precious; there are just too many of them. Once collected and preserved as art, or to document memories, they are now emerging as a new language, one that promises to be both more universally understood and accessible to anyone. Witness the rise of a new visual vocabulary. Photos, along with emojis, video snippets, GIFS, and other imagery, are replacing written language for many of the things we once relied on words to express.

    We’ve seen this mass shift in literacy before. Until fairly recently in history, literacy was restricted to the professionals—a small group of educated scribes and religious figures understood to be fit to translate Biblical texts and render contracts. In the 1400s, Europeans were considered literate if they could spell their names—and 80% could not. Then came the printing press. Within a century, people could read and write in growing numbers, and the literate were able to express complex ideas in writing. This mass shift in literacy ushered in progress in science, general education, and the arts. We are now entering a similar period for images. Our smartphones and the Internet that enables them are the modern-day equivalent to movable type, and these tools are still very new.