Concern → Intervention → Evidence → Reflection → Pedagogic change
I wanted the students who agreed to participate in the research to think about the possibilities of intervention on images they has taken previously as part of their BA Photography Pathways. The caveat was that the images must have been taken on their smartphone and that they were not using the zoom function of the camera when they made their images.
Interventions in photographic practice are a norm especially in regards to Fine Art Practice. As my role on MA Commercial Photography we have a brief specifically tailored and set to our students, however the role of Smartphone interventions has never been explored. Examples of artists such as John Stezaker, Simryn Gill and Julie Cockburn. However I wanted the students to think about what the smartphone does in regards to the technical and aesthetic aspects of images and what an retrospective intervention on their images happens using a post production in photoshop to achieve a retrospective “zoom”.
Digital Zoom, Interpolation, Surveillance Optics & Social-Media Aesthetics
Information Sheet Handout to Participants ( See attached also)
1. Digital Zoom: What It Really Does
Digital zoom is not the same as optical zoom.
- Optical zoom uses the lens to bring the subject physically closer.
- Digital zoom simply crops the image and enlarges it, meaning the camera must invent new pixels to fill the gaps.
As you zoom in, you’re not “seeing more”, you’re seeing an amplified crop.
Digital zoom reveals how smartphones simulate photographic clarity rather than truly capture it. Every zoomed image becomes a negotiation between what was there and what the software imagines.
2. Interpolation: Inventing Missing Information
Interpolation is the computational process that guesses what the missing pixels should look like.
Common systems include:
- Nearest Neighbour: simple, blocky, pixelated
- Bilinear / Bicubic: smooth but smeared
- AI Super-Resolution: algorithms infer texture using training data
This matters because the more interpolation is used, the less the image reflects the original scene. Instead, it becomes a data-driven reconstruction, raising questions about truth, fiction, and photographic representation.
3. Surveillance Optics: Zoom as Power
Zoom has strong ties to surveillance technologies, CCTV, drone cameras, police body cams, satellite imaging.
These systems use zoom not for aesthetics but for control, distance, and scrutiny.
Three key ideas:
- Distance: The viewer remains safely detached from the subject.
- Power: The person operating the camera has more agency than the person being watched.
- The Forensic Gaze: Subjects are analysed for clues, guilt, or deviance.
When students replicate zoom in everyday smartphone photography, they echo a visual vocabulary shaped by policing, investigation, and monitoring even unintentionally.
4. Social-Media Aesthetics: How Platforms Shape Images
Smartphones don’t just capture images they optimise them for the “feed.”
Algorithms and image pipelines favour:
- Hyper-sharpening
- Smoothing of skin
- Strong colours and contrast
- High dynamic range
- Face-prioritisation
- “Clean” noise-free look
This creates a new aesthetic:
- Part aspirational lifestyle
- Part advertising gloss
- Part AI-enhanced simulation
As a result, users learn to recognise and reproduce TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat’s visual styles. The camera becomes less a neutral device and a more platform-aligned aesthetic
Why These Ideas Matter in Photography Education
Smartphones have democratised image making but also standardised it.
Studying digital zoom, interpolation, and surveillance optics helps students:
- Recognise mediation rather than assume transparency
- Question how “truth” is constructed in digital images
- Understand how power operates in visual culture
- Critically analyse the aesthetics pushed by platforms
- See photography as a socio-technical process, not just a technical one
These concepts encourage a critical visual literacy that goes beyond “taking better photos” and moves toward understanding how images shape (and distort) the world we see.