IN CELEBRATION
Photography as Memory
The importance of the photographic image extends far beyond its aesthetic or documentary value. As Susie Clark, a specialist in the preservation and restoration of photographic images, and Franziska Frey, a specialist in digital imaging and the preservation of photographic collections, observed in their 2019 report On Photograph Preservation, photography enabled people to see an exact visual record of a scene rather than relying solely on drawing or written description.
The consequences were profound. Individual and collective memory was no longer shaped exclusively by oral testimony and written accounts. The photograph became another form of evidence: a visual record that could capture a person, place, or event beyond the moment it was created.
But a photograph can continue to serve this function only if it is preserved.
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We have gained an unprecedented ability to document events as they unfold.
Across the Arab region, decades of conflict and crisis, along with migration, displacement, and the transformation of places, have put photographic collections at risk. Archives can be dispersed or destroyed by war, neglect, or the simple passage of time. The danger is especially acute when collections are held in vulnerable institutions or in private homes that lack the resources or conditions for long-term preservation.
Photography has always been more than a way to record reality. It played a fundamental role in transforming painting and helped bring about the emergence of cinema and, later, television. It reshaped advertising and journalism and changed how societies communicated and understood the world. Yet photography has repeatedly been declared dead. The advent of cinema, television, digital photography, and screen-based media each prompted questions about whether the photographic image could survive the next technological transformation. Today, however, the question may be more fundamental: are we witnessing a second death of photography— not the disappearance of the photograph, but the erosion of our confidence in what it represents?
As the scholar of visual culture and media Kevin Robins has argued, digital technologies have brought about a postphotographic era. In the final decades of the twentieth century, photography increasingly converged with video and computer technologies. The still image became one component of a much larger digital environment of moving images, networks, screens and hypermedia. Artificial intelligence has accelerated this transformation. An image can now be generated, altered, or reconstructed without a camera ever capturing the scene it appears to depict. The abundance of images is no longer simply a matter of quantity. It raises a more fundamental question about trust. If photography once drew much of its power from the belief that something— or someone— had stood before the camera, what happens when an image convincingly depicts something that never existed? This question will become increasingly important for museums, archives, journalists, researchers, and anyone concerned with preserving historical evidence. The challenge is no longer simply
At the same time, we have gained an unprecedented ability to document events as they unfold. Photography is no longer the preserve of professional photographers with specialized equipment. A mobile phone has put a camera— and the ability to create an immediate record of history— within reach of almost everyone.
In 2025, UNESCO announced the creation of a regional committee for the Memory of the World program in the Arab region. The organization noted that Arab documentary heritage accounted for only about four to five percent of the materials registered in the International Register of Memory of the World— a strikingly small share, particularly given the vulnerability of many memory institutions in the region.
The paradox is clear: we have never produced so many images, yet much of our photographic heritage remains at risk of loss.
Photography’ s Second Death?
Preservation is not the only challenge facing photography. Digital manipulation and artificial intelligence are also undermining its reliability as a record.
Monsieur Blanche, French consul in Tripoli under Ottoman rule. © Mohsen Yammine Collection
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