Ecologies of Photography: More-Than-Human Perspectives.
Edited by Cristina Baldacci and Noemi Quagliati.

This issue investigates the conditions under which it is possible to speak of an “ecology” of photography.

In the late 1970s Susan Sontag foresaw this question when she highlighted the material reality of photographs and called for an ecological approach to images. Recent scholarship and artistic practice have developed her insight further. They have moved from a linear history of styles and technologies to a plural, material history that traces photography’s entanglements with subterranean resources, animal and plant derivatives, and chemical pollutants. This history ties the medium to the Anthropocene, or Capitalocene, and to colonial and extractive policies.

Cameras, materials and infrastructures, both analogue and digital, depend on mineral extraction, toxic chemicals and high energy consumption. The hyperproduction and archiving of images raise urgent questions about sustainability, fragility and obsolescence. Photography also plays an ambivalent role: it exposes the ecological crisis and at the same time contributes to it. A further perspective is the co-evolution of humans and machines. Operatorless systems, drones and AI-generated images challenge authorship and shift attention from photography’s representational role to its operational one.

The issue welcomes contributions from scholars and artist-theorists who take a non-anthropocentric approach and examine how photography has depicted, studied and polluted the world, as well as how ecological conditions and more-than-human agencies have shaped its practices, aesthetics and discourses. Contributions may also address film and moving images, virtual reality and augmented reality.

Possible areas of inquiry include:

- Post-anthropocentric photography: diverse more-than-human perspectives
- The materiality of photography in relation to subterranean resources and animal/plant derivatives
- The environmental and social implications of the photographic industry in the context of global extractive capitalism
- The environments of photography (e.g., production sites, darkrooms, photo-editing software)
- Photography beyond the concept of authorship: collaborative human and more-than-human/non-human practices (e.g., camera-based and camera-less photographic practices)
- Photography as a correlation between different organisms, environments, and technologies
- Experimental photographic techniques and gender inclusivity; female labour in the photographic industry
- Operatorless image-production systems and generative photographic processes
- The fragility of photographic images: challenges in preservation, archiving, and digitization
- Technical obsolescence and the lifecycle of photographic media
- Photography and extinction
- Photography, environmental humanities, and activism

HOW TO SUBMIT

- Deadline: 12 February 2027
- Full-length papers only, 30,000–40,000 characters including notes and spaces. Abstracts alone are not accepted.
- Languages: Italian, English or French. Articles in Italian or French also need the title and abstract in English, entered through the “Form Language/Lingua dei moduli” option.
- Submission: only through the journal’s online platform, following the 5-step process. Submissions sent any other way will not be considered.
- Review: the editors make an initial selection, followed by double-blind peer review.