Last semester, I learned a lot about tactility in general and why tactile design matters. When researching, I stumbled upon a topic about tactile images. Since I also consider myself a photographer, I think it could be really interesting to try and combine these two topics.
How to combine photography and tactile design?
Nowadays, people look at their photos on digital screens. Rarely, anyone actually prints photos ( maybe for special events like wedding, etc.) and even when they print them, they don’t really interact with them. They store photography in albums or books, seldom touching them. Even me, who likes to capture important events, am not really prone to actually printing my photography. Sometimes it’s really sad that we have all these photos and we forget about them because we don’t really know what to do with them. I remember that when I used to be little, I looked at photos in albums and I was really excited when I had them in my hands. At the same time, I was a little bit afraid that I will ruin them with my fingers because the material wasn’t touch-friendly.
Wouldn’t it be great to have photos which encourage you to touch and explore them? What consequences would that have? Would people be more interested into looking? What about people who are not so passionate about photography – how would their reaction be? What about those who are in fact really passionate? Does adding another dimension to photography “ruin” its purpose? How does adding tactile elements to photography affect its appearance? Does photography appreciation grow with interactive elements?
I have a lot more questions, but for now, I think I wan’t to explore different ways in which I can actually manipulate photos so that they have tactile experience. I want to research how to add interactive dimension to photography using tactile materials.
The goal of my research will be not only to bring back the tactile experience to photography, but to add an extra meaning to it using interesting and experimental tactile elements.
