Photography Made Difficult?
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Not all that long ago, photography required a fair amount of study and skill to master technically. Both professionals and amateurs possessed a knowledge of film, the darkroom, chemistry, development, optics, cameras, light and exposure just to name a few.
The advent of digital capture and cameras that do everything but brew a cup of coffee, this knowledge is no longer required to make a photograph. These days, all you really need is a cell phone.
So the question is, has the ease and immediacy of digital ruined the art of photography?
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Crystal said:
I would say that it has made it easier for someone who knows nothing to capture decent pictures – but that is not art. Great photography still requires the photographer to know as much as possible about his equipment, how it reacts to different environments, and how to get the best possible shot out of it.
The growth in Digital photography has lead to more crappy photos out there – not more art. It still takes a fair amount of knowledge to create art with a camera.
May 10th, 2007 at 11:08 am -
Origin said:
I agree with you for the most part. Digital has brought photography to the masses in a way that know one could even fathom 10 years ago. However I can think of at least a dozen recent conversations with younger photographers that never learned how to expose an image. Meaning that the camera has always done the work for them. They never learned how to read light and make the camera produce the result that they want. Instead they take whatever the camera turns out and try to fix it in photoshop. The result of these high-tech motor driven cameras has been a constant deluge of mediocre, perishable images.
May 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm -
Cheng Leng said:
I think that it has helped us to do away with the chemical processing part, but there is still a lot to be learned about ‘the art of photography’.
Also, I think that people are generally better photographers now because you don’t have to pay anything for test shots. Just hit the Delete button if it don’t turn out right.
🙂
May 11th, 2007 at 5:52 am -
rodaniel said:
You could equate this to blogging versus web design. Have bloggers & easy-peasy, click ‘n drag blogging platforms ruined website design? No, not at all. There’s still a distict difference between what many bloggers present and well-designed websites – and it’s doubtful that many bloggers believe that they’re competing on the same playing field with web designers.
Likewise, there’s a big difference between folks who take digital snapshots and those who are into photography as an art form. And I don’t belive many people would confuse the two.
But you can create art with a disposable camera or dull snapshots with a $2000 semi-pro digital rig. As with other art forms, the means of capturing the image isn’t what defines the quality or creativity of a photograph.
May 12th, 2007 at 1:38 pm