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?
But how could anyone sell books entitled something like, “Composition for Digital Photography?”
how could anyone buy these books?
Chase, this seems like a silly request to me. Sure, a guitar player plays a guitar and a painter paints, but I would have thought that one of the first questions a curious person might have for these people is “What kind of guitar do you play?”, “What style of painter?”.
You yourself are a photographer, but if a possible client who knew nothing about you asked you what kind of photography you specialised in I’m sure you’d elaborate. Portrait, lifestyle, sports, documentary? Or would you say, “it’s all photography”.
I’m by no means saying that the word digital is always neccesary, but wanting it’s total removal seems counter-productive. After all, it’s another piece to the puzzle as to who you are as a photographer.
Now, I’m off to listen to my vinyls.
I don’t see how it is a relevant distinction anymore. Unless you are a Mac vs PC purist (they are both computers, right?), film and digital are both photography. It is about time, Chase.
I think it already has been dropped, especially by younger people. Many teenagers have never known photography in anything other than its digital form, and will stare blankly at you if you use quaint terms such as “film” and “developing”.
Personally, I shoot digital 99% of the time, and it’s only when I shoot film that I feel the need to tell people that I’m doing something non-digital.
So long as you use your fingers to release the shutter, we are all digital photographers.
As a musician and a guitarist in particular I must disagree: an electric guitar is a different beast from an acoustic. Nutcases could also argue a hollowbody electric is a different breed from a solid body electric or that a Taylor acoustic is totally different from a Martin…and the debates can rage hotter than Canon vs. Nikon. The practitioners, however, are all “guitarists.”
We are all “photographers” as well, one using film is no more or less a photographer than one shooting digits. Though I shoot entirely digital, my brain still sees the world as Velvia and Kodachrome and I often refer to how a scene will appear on ‘film’ for lack of a better term (how this will appear on the ‘monitor’ just doesn’t have the same appeal). But making the distinction between digital and film is still valid: if nothing else it defines a different workflow even if the results may be indistinguishable to the average Joe. Likewise an ‘electric guitarist’ can play through an fx box creating an acoustic sound and the acoustic fellow can do the same to make some crunchy raunch…the average Joe wouldn’t know what type of guitar was used.