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Thursday, October 05, 2006

Devalued?

Recently, on a fairly film-oriented internet discussion thread, someone asked whether digital photography has devalued photography. My quick answer is yes. Digital, and camera automation generally, makes it easier for casual users to take acceptable photographs without knowing about what used to be considered the rudiments of photography. There is no longer much of a challenge in producing an acceptably-exposed, acceptably-focused photograph. Pretty much anyone can do it. And if they can't do it consistently even with all the automation, the marginal cost of trying again is zero.

So digital has devalued photography by opening it to anyone and making important parts of the process cost-free. With the advent of matches, people stopped crediting those skilled with the tinderbox. Not an exact analogy, but close enough.

I see the results of this change when I use email to share photos. Even when I send around a large number of photos that I took using film, for which my hard costs include film, processing and scanning, it's not uncommon that I receive no acknowledgement or thanks of any kind. The first few times it happened, I found the lack of response bizarre and a little hurtful. I would wonder if I had somehow misrouted the photos I was sharing. More recently, I have adjusted my expectations, and I remind myself that I do photography mostly for my own pleasure.

Still, email has made a variety of communications as cost-free and quick as creating a digital photo. It takes only a few seconds to send a quick note of acknowledgement and thanks for unsolicited gifts that represented expenditures of, if nothing else, another person's effort and interest.


posted at 5:08 PM

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