New Work Relations in the Digital World

The digital revolution is often seen as an essentially technological event. It has indeed transformed the equipment used and has profoundly affected the way in which photographers, as image professionals, work. But it has also had significant repercussions on cooperative relationships, on relations with those who commission the work, and therefore on the organization of work itself. This article explores this more social aspect of the shift to digital, based on data from a survey carried out from 2010 to 2012 on photographers and their professional partners. It shows that technological tools have accentuated the power that principals have over their service providers, in the wake of economic changes initiated in the 1990s.