We've already seen the birth of the citizen journalist, now HP and the Musée D'Elysée, Lausanne, are encouraging digital photography enthusiasts to become citizen photographers.
During a special exhibition - "We Are All Photographers Now", running from 8 February to 20 May- market-leading HP digital photography technology will help the public use their creativity to become officially exhibited artists.
In a first for a photography museum, the exhibition will gather thousands of images sent in by the public via the web and then project them in sequence. The projected images will then be captured by webcam and emailed back to the participants, making the exhibition potentially the biggest interactive photography exhibition ever staged. The exhibition will also be available to view online, by anyone in the world.
The url for uploading photos to the Tous Photographes Exhibition is:
www.allphotographersnow.ch
Through an online promotion, participants will be given the chance to enter a special HP draw to win products, and will also be able to take advantage of discounted Snapfish prints.
Each week 150 to 200 of the photographs will be collected and printed out on one sheet of large-format HP paper, using an HP Designjet Z300 printer installed in the museum. The printer, designed for graphics professionals, will produce beautiful, long-lasting, museum-quality prints. Every week they will be displayed in a dynamic exhibition, while a copy will be kept as part of the museum's collection.
Those visiting the museum will also be able to create a permanent record of their visit using HP equipment. HP will be providing digital cameras, wi-fi photo printers and workstations so that the public can take their own photos and then print them and upload them to HP's photo-sharing site Snapfish.
"HP's vision for digital photography is to give everyone the freedom to do whatever they want with their pictures, from printing out photos in the home, from the home and in retail to sharing them with the rest of the world," said Emilio Ghilardi, vice president and general manager, Consumer Business, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Europe, Middle East Africa.