Those expressed in the title are two extreme positions with regard to digital photography and related technologies. I believe both are wrong, and we will discuss in this article why.

People have some very strange ideas about photography, digital and their relationship. Let’s examine some of these strange ideas.

Fallacy Number 1: Photography captures an accurate image of what we see

There is little if anything in photography that is oriented to accurate representation. Let us examine this.

Let us start with how we really experience the world. I don’t know about you, but I experience the world as having depth, three-dimensionality, a very wide spatial field and with no depth of field, but rather in full focus from very close to far away. I also experience a huge dynamic range in lightness values, being able to see detail in bright sunlight and also in deep shadows. How do we see like this? The answer lies in the fact that what we think we are seeing bears little resemblance to the raw image our eyes are seeing at the time. Rather we see the world through a mental construct, a virtual reality, if you like. Data from our eyes is fed into this model, but so is information about our body posture, orientation in space, memories of not only the space we are in, but even memories of other objects related to those in the scene and many other things. If you stop and think for a moment this description must be true. A human eye is a normal lens, like any other, so it has aberrations and a depth of field. It also only has a fairly small area in the center of our field of view that is sharp. Yet we don’t see like that at all. Sure, the area you are looking at has more detail, but our eyes are constantly varying focus and point and integrating these images, with spatial depth information and that is how our 3D model is built. Within that we direct our focus as we wish. Even if you do not like the above description of perception, the following is still relevant.

So now let us consider photography. Any of the main ways of doing photography produce a 2D image. This, in itself, is the first of many abstractions from reality. Unless you are shooting a completely flat object, any photograph MUST be an abstraction from reality. Then we control depth of field by the aperture you select, take a slice of time and average what is happening during that time, by our choice of shutter speed and select a section of the brightness range by the exposure we use. On top of that the lens we choose and the framing we set are yet another form of abstraction from reality, the throwing away for more of what makes the world ‘real’ to us. The film we choose or the color space we work in is a further manipulation. And so it goes on.

I think you can see that there are so many ways that we manipulate what we capture compared to what we experience that you can see photography as, in reality, a quite abstracted art form (definition of abstraction !!!!!!!!!!!!). When we move from capture to output there are even more levels of abstraction added, from our choices of papers, chemicals and manipulations under the enlarger in darkroom work to the choices we make in Photoshop and the printer driver, plus the paper and inks we choose to use, in digital output.

What is amazing is that despite the huge degree to which a photograph is an abstraction of reality, a good photograph is still capable of giving an amazing feeling of the place, can serve to take our memories back to a time and place, or can put us in touch with a loved one long lost.

Fallacy Number 2: Photoshop is the end of photography

Fear of Photoshop and digital practices seems to be the latest fear in a long list of fears. In my time in photography there has been fear of autoexposure and then fear of autofocus. Then came fear of digital. All these have been justified as concern that the technology was de-skilling photography, making it all too easy and causing quality work to be lost in a surge in poor quality work that had suddenly become easier to produce. Prior to my photographic lifetime were fears about roll film and many more.

It is my belief that the real fear is fear of the unknown, of having some set of skills that had been learned with difficulty suddenly made easier and of having other people able to do things that they could never master. This is a very human response to change. That does not make it any more acceptable as a justification for discriminating against certain photographers for their choice of which technologies they want to use.

Photography has always been a technological discipline. In fact the early period of photography’s history was one of rapid experimentation and development. Technological disciplines experience change. That is just the way it is.

Fallacy Number 3: Digital photography is special and unique

Now some people make much noise about digital photography being fundamentally so different from traditional photography that it is, in fact, a new and separate area, unique and special.

Two of the so called unique aspects of digital photography are the virtual nature of the photographic image ‘original’ and its separation from its physical form, which can be infinitely reproduced and varied as desired. I would argue that a photographic negative or slide is as much a virtual image, in reality, as an image file. Why do I make such an outrageous claim? Because I actually see that from a practical perspective they are the same. Let’s just see what you can do with a negative. You can make an infinite number of prints from it. Ah, but what about the dodging and burning manipulations that can never be completely accurately reproduced from print to print? Well, if you make those manipulations in making an inter-negative, you now have a manipulated image that you can infinitely reproduce. You can also vary the size, the type of paper you print on, etc as you print this. Just because most people don’t work that way with film does not invalidate this, since you can do it. The digital is unique crowd will argue that a negative is not really virtual, that it is physical. That you can’t transmit it the way you can a digital file, etc. But does this really matter? If you can do all the same things but perhaps in different ways, isn’t it effectively the same. And is it really even true? A negative is composed of localised specific molecules captured within a structure of thin films and a carrier substrate. An electronic image file is composed of either electrons (or electron holes) existing in thin films on a substrate or as magnetic fields on a molecular structure on thin or thick films. Now excuse me, but they all sound pretty similar to me.

The reality is that there is really nothing that you cannot do with a digital image that you can’t do to a film-based image if you try hard enough and are willing to throw enough time and expense at it. Just because most people can’t or won’t do it doesn’t make it go away. If you need convincing look at Jerry Uelsmanns work.

Digital does make a whole series of things that are hard to do in the darkroom much faster and easier. However, that does not make it unique. If that was the criteria for unique and special status then you could say that roll film is a unique and special process compared to sheet film, that cameras with autofocus are unique and beyond normal cameras, etc. Clearly, whilst having different characteristics, they are all just within the spectrum of photography.

The problems with what such people are saying are twofold. Firstly, the argument that digital is so special and unique is seductive to many people who work with digital and need to have their ego fluffed up by feeling they are doing something unique and special. Secondly, this very argument can be turned against digital processes by those who are in fear of it. If it is unique and different we can exclude it, ban it or refuse it entry to our nice little exhibitions or competitions, or at least confine it to its own category so that it does not pollute the gene pool of real photography.

Photography is the art and science of capturing an image on some light sensitive material. That is all. So film and digital, darkroom printing or video projection of an image, or an inkjet print from a highly manipulated in Photoshop file is all photography. The only thing that matters is that it is an image formed by light and the resulting image. The rest is just detail of how we do it. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that photography offers so many paths and choices, so many options in how we translate our vision to a finished image. But what matters is not whether something was captured or processed in some traditional way or digitally, it is that we start with an image formed by light and finish with an image. Judge the image, does it work or not, is it interesting or not, does it move you or not. That is what matters.

The Love of Photography

I love digital imaging techniques. I’ve been around digital imaging for longer than many people, not as long as some. I have now moved my photographic capture to purely digital forms. I left the darkroom behind with joy many years ago. But they are decisions that were right for me. There are many others who, having tried digital, are going back to film or the darkroom. This is all good. It shows that photography is alive and well, full of options or choices.