Should We Drop “Digital” from Digital Photography? by Fred Bonilla
One of our readers, Fred Bonilla, feels that we should examine the new semantics. What do you think?
Anyone who took part in PhotoPlus in New York last month is surely aware of Chase Jarvis (He gave the keynote address at The Javits Center on The New Creativity and the Social Art of Photography) . In fact, most everyone in the photographic community is aware of his work, his considerable talent and most everything he does. (I personally dig his book consisting of photos only taken with his I-Phone). So, his opinions are highly regarded, with loads of buzz whenever he posts something on his blog or Twitter.(You can hear the tweets if you listen very carefully…) His latest post today gave me pause, for while it was simple in nature, it also was profound in it’s proposal.
His blog post (in it’s entirety) is as follows:
“I heard it again yesterday for the billionth time: “Digital Photographyâ€. 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?”
Hmmmm. Reading it over a few times over, here’s my two cents worth…Yes, an f-stop is an f-stop in both analog & digital photography, An ISO Setting as well as other principles apply to both mediums as well. Perhaps the assumption that analog (film) photography is essentially dead allows for the term “photography” to be interpreted to be all encompassing, especially from a person who produced a fine art book with a phone! But can we broadly assume that analog photography is dead, no longer a reference point when we speak about “photography”? Robert Benson, a photographer from San Diego wrote a great blog piece on “The Holdouts-Shooters Who Still Use Film” who highlights prominent photographers like Brian Finke, whose work I wrote about in a previous Photoinduced blog post in 2008. Anyone who thinks film is dead obviously hasn’t bumped into a devotee of plastic cameras like the Holga/ Diana or a Lomomaniac.Even an interview with Kodak’s marketing manager of pro film Scott DiSabato in The British Journal of Photography says that current sales of color film are steady, and that sales of black and white film is“doing extremely well.†He sees it as a mini-revolution, adding that “it almost feels that there is a very real resurgence for film.†I guess that while there are folks that still make a case for the distinctiveness of shooting in an analog matter and it’s results, the term “digital photography” may have to stick around a while longer…
What to make of this, guys? Is Chase right, or is the term still relevant? Love to know what folks think in PhotoInduced Land!
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All I can say is, I hope film is not dead.
Given the fact that most photography today is digital, it would seem logical that the descriptor be used only when needed to note the exception, i.e., “film photography,” or “analog photography.”
I think that it’s a good time to drop both “digital” and “analog” from the conversation except in those cases when a distinction may be necessary. One does not need to use the terms when discussing photographs, unless the actual process is part of the information important to the picture. A Sabbatier print, for example, is as much a statement of the darkroom process as it is of the subject matter; an editorial print of the Brooklyn Bridge could come from either source and no one could care less.
Knowledgeable people know that a Nikon F2 is “film” or “analog” and a Nikon D300 is digitial. There is no need to specify beyond the name of the camera (was the use of the “F” a matter of prescience by Nikon?).
It may also be easier to simply shift the designation to the lesser used (film) process. Why not assume that the camera or process is digital unless specifically referred to as analog. In that case the DSLR will revert to being an SLR and a film reflex would be known as an FSLR. That would save a lot of ink in the long run and has precedent in the computer world; ATA (IDE) hard drives were always assumed to be parallel devices until the serial devices came along. When they were new, they were referred to as “SATA” vs “ATA”. Then, the milieu became populated by SATA and PATA drives and of late, one frequently refers to ATA and PATA drives, as the serial variety has become the norm.
“Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important.” -HCB
Only photo geeks look to the camera and process to evaluate photographs hanging on the wall. The rest of the world just uses their eyeballs.
Gгeat poѕt however I waѕ wоndering іf you соuld wrіte
a littе moгe on this subjеct?
Ι’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit more. Thank you!