I heard it again yesterday for the billionth time: “Digital Photography”. Isn’t it time we drop the word ‘digital’?
Seems we’ve managed to drop the “electric” from “electric guitar” in common parlance.
We found it easy to drop the word “acrylic” from “acrylic painting” when that came on the scene with oils.
We quickly ditched the “digital” from “digital music” when it took the lead over records and tapes and CDs.
I suppose by-and-large our industry has dropped the word, but given that digital and analog photography are fundamentally the same thing, isn’t it time we implore the rest of the world to assimilate the term “digital photography” back into “photography” as a whole?
Yes…but just until photography doesn’t mean only digital photography… it doesn’t matter from what kind of media is it… it’s photography!
And no… film will never die! 🙂
I agree. Its about time that we start to forget film, just like how we forgot about Tap in the music industry.
Photography from the Greek roots simply means “writing with light.” And whether you do it digitally or with film, you are still writing using light.
You can get into painting and determine whether the painting was done with acrylic paint, oil, egg tempera, watercolors, etc. and whether or not the painting is on canvass, copper, wooden panels, or some other material, but all of it is painting. Is one better than the other? Absolutely not.
So under the large umbrella, digital photography is photography just as an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar are under the same heading. I say I shoot digitally because of the level of ease to control my images rather than spending time in a dark room. The only dark room I like is when I go to bed.
However, I am a photographer, because people say to me, “I really like your photograph” rather than “I like your digital image.”
Well, it depends on the application. If we’re talking about overall technique, composition, f/stops and all that, there’s no point in making the digital/film distinction, due to the state of technology. And this applies for 90% of photography-talk. But most of the time, “digital photography” websites are going to contain a lot of content that is irrelevant, since I’m now a film photographer. There’s a lot of post-processing work with digital, and hardly any with film. So we need to keep the distinction, lest people just ASSUME that photography is all digital these days. Especially as I try to convince more and more people to start using film by pointing out the advantages that I like.
But neither do I think that it should be a pejorative distinction. Just as with acrylic vs. oil painting, it’s just a choice, and there are advantages to each medium. But there are still times when the differences are of key importance to photographers.
thought about this some days ago when i was in a bookstore and saw some books about “digital photography”… couldn’t agree more!