Abstract
This article offers a new framework for conceptualizing the digital photograph as a palimpsest – a multilayered signifying object representing various types and acts of alterations performed at different moments of an image’s formation. It offers an analysis of how the concept of layering is manifested within processes of alteration, and elaborates types of image alteration and their potential accumulation in a single image file. Examining the digital photograph as a palimpsest opens up the possibility of referring to a photograph as stratigraphic sequence by accounting for and emphasizing a timeline of changes within arrays and digital platforms while referring to the interaction between humans and technology. This new conceptualization points to the potential for enduring change in the digital image and to the hypothetical possibility of tracing the narrative of its visual formation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2067-2085 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Convergence |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2025 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Keywords
- Digital images
- image manipulation
- layering
- palimpsest
- photography
- visual culture
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