Review Of Jenifer Tucker's Essay 'Eye On The Street'

Jenifer Tucker demonstrates the importance of how photography influenced the change in surveillance within her article “Eye On the Street”, as it captures the evolution of photographs. People around the world were not able to illustrate the beauty of nature and others around them without making a painting that would take a few days to be finished. This was until the camera was invented and started to be used within the wealthy community around 1838, as the cameras were too rare and expensive for many to get their hands on one. This change would later give people in public a controversial issue on if they were able to be photographed without permission. As the opportunity for equal photographic records from the wealthy and working class was

Within “Eye On the Street” Tucker is able to give a glimpse into the transformation of photographs within the crowded cities. As cameras started to be made available for the higher wealthy class, it only allowed for select few people to get their hands on these cameras. Which soon became the talk of the town, as more pictures of public places are being taken and seen around the world. The photographs that were being taken are not the same picture over and over, but these photographs capture the “progress of the building of the city’s infrastructure: bridges, subway construction, ferry boats, buses, the waterfront, and signal towers for traffic.” (Tucker 7). Tucker was able to allow the reader to see the wide variety of photographs being taken; these photographs allowed the public to see just how the world around them is changing over time. For example, how the bridges age and structurally hold up over the years, providing important information to construction workers on how this landmark has changed for the better or worse.

One big component to this is the new use of cameras and security cameras on the side of buildings. As the government and businesses became worried about public safety they started to install cameras on their buildings in order to have street surveillance. The decision that was made had some backlash from the public as they felt this was a betrayal on their public rights as they were walking past these businesses. But really these cameras were only up to make sure others were kept safe in the streets not knowing what could happen at any moment in time. The concept of cameras on buildings later developed into the tracking of the public pedestrian as cellphones became more popular along with computers. These two changes to the world piggybacked off of the camera's new surveillance purpose, but took it a step further in order to watch what you do in your free time. With these two concepts combined the change of cameras allowed for the change in the surveillance