Is Digital Photography Different?

For someone who has always used film cameras, especially large format or medium format cameras, the move to digital is difficult. It is difficult, not because they can't quickly master the technical stuff, but difficult because it changes much of the process of making their art. What they have seen is someone with a hand-size camera running through memory cards with the speed of a machine gun fire. Certainly large format image making is a slow process....time to observe and find the image, time to adjust the camera, time to insert to the film holders....all done with deliberation. Medium format image making is a little faster but typically those who shoot with a medium format camera also spend more time observing and making deliberate images. And there is also just the process...processing the film, looking at the negs, making contact sheets, making work prints. For most of us who have done that, there is a magic in some of these processes that we hate to give up.

Today, my friend Gloria Baker Feinstein wrote in her blog about her concerns of using a digital camera. It is a very thoughtful blog entry from a thoughtful and observant photographer who is betwix and between film and digital capture. I quote a small piece of the entry so I hope that you will go read it for yourself.

I just hope we digital shooters don't forget that we still have to do the thinking, yes, even though cameras these days claim to do it all themselves. Patience, thoughtfulness, a keen sense of observation, and oh, yes, heart... I don't think even the most mega-pixeled camera on the market today can offer any of these features.

She is so right. Just because we change from film cameras to digital cameras, if we leave behind patience, thoughtfulness, a keen sense of observation and heart, we will have left behind the making of our own images.