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?
Chase, don’t look for mouse shit…look to avoid the elephant shit!
I actually have gone around and around with a woman about whether or not photography was truly art. She did not think it should be accepted into a local juried art show and should certainly not be eligible for any awards or even be allowed to compete against “real” art like paintings. When I dropped off my work for this year’s show (one of which ended up winning an award), of course it was she who was at check-in. She said, “Is that digital?” When I said “yes” she said, “Oh, it’s enhanced. That’s why it looks so good.” Ah… ignorance.
Just for the record, I’m 17 and focus on film photography.
if not for the computer people in back room working 16 hours a day fixing and re-shaping and adding style and back rounds to your pictures you all would be working a best buy selling big screen tv. LOL LOL LOL All fun aside I go to chase’s web page because he’s a “photographer”. And I see one man doing so much for so many. Thanks
As photography is both an art and a collection of technical skills, I think there is some distinction to be made. Many techniques and concepts are common to both, but there are also plenty of skills/concepts which are not shared.
I have enough family and friends who are still struggling to learn and understand skill unique to digital — such as calibration, post-processing, and digital file archiving. There are classes to teach (some of the) skills unique to digital, which would not get into common photography techniques, skills and concepts. Is it not accurate to call this a “digital photography” class?
My gut reaction is that this is almost a Seinfeld-esqe proposal. Truly, there are bigger problems that we might aspire to solve.