Why I Resent Digital Imaging

A nice antidote to digital.

A not-so-subtle shift has taken place in my view of digital photography: I'm beginning to actively dislike the whole notion. After writing my piece about Ralph Gibson and his conversion from silver halide photography to noughts and crosses (or is it ones and zeros?), a few readers asked me why I felt that way. I thought it might be interesting to attempt an explanation.

Until the Ralph Gibson post, I hadn't realised that my view of digital imaging had fundamentally changed. But, if truth be told, I actually resent it. There, I've said it. I don't just have a preference for film-based photography and real darkroom prints. It goes much deeper than that. That's a weird realisation as it wasn't that long ago that I was a fully paid up member of the digital imaging crowd with a D700 and a clutch of autofocus lenses (still got 'em). I've published a few digital photography blogs in the past and was exclusively pixelated for about six years.

I was going to call this post "Why I Hate Digital Imaging" until my 14-year-old daughter, Freya, commented in passing, "How over the top is that!" She's right, of course. I suppose if film were to disappear completely, I'd have little choice but to find another obsession or carry on taking photographs with my D700.

The real issue, though, and the reason for my resentment is that digital is a serious threat to the future of film photography. Digital imagers - and some film photographers, too - often ask why we can't just accept the two mediums for what they are. The platitude goes that neither is better than the other: they're just different and deserve to be treated according to their respective merits. If I were still using the D700 I'd probably have no problem with that as it wouldn't be my chosen medium that was under threat. But I'm exclusively film and darkroom and unless we can swell the user base then film is bound to become less viable over time.

A Tenner a Roll?
It's true that it may never actually disappear. There might always be a big enough demand to profitably sustain one or two emulsions but at what price? Would you be happy to have a choice of Rollei Retro 100 or Adox CHS 100 II for a tenner a roll? That's perhaps the main reason that I've got it in for digital and it's why I started this blog. I don't know what influence if any I've had but at least I feel that I'm doing something to stimulate or sustain someone's interest in film and darkroom somewhere. I understand the argument that if society chooses digital and film goes by the wayside then that's just democracy in action and the markets making up their minds. But democracy is also two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.

I have a lot of readers who shoot some film but also like their digital cameras, and that's fine. Shooting some film is lots better than shooting none at all so please keep doing that. I can't work like that. I'm basically a lazy individual. Think of a real go-getter, remove the go-gettingness from him and you have me - just "real". If I were to use both digital and film I know that laziness, convenience, easiness or whatever would win the day and I'd pick up the D700 again. Not because it's better or more satisfying but purely because it's easier and I'm lazy. It's why I moved to digital in the first place before realising what a mistake I'd made.

I don't hold with the view that film and digital are just different skill sets that have to be learned. I've used both extensively and it's my view that digital is much easier than film. "Period", as Obama is fond of saying but, unlike the President, I actually mean it. At the risk of rubbing some people up the wrong way, pretending the two mediums are on an equal footing is just a cop out and a way of saying that you prefer the easy and convenient route but without wanting to admit it. The alternative is to accept that people switch from film to digital because the latter is more difficult to master and they just want a bigger challenge. Believe that one if you like.

Into The Lions' Den
When I wrote the earlier piece about Ralph Gibson moving to digital, I went onto the Rangefinder Forum to "promote" the blog post. I'm trying to build this blog's readership and that means reaching out to new readers. Anyway, I took a hammering from the mainly digital or digital/film RFF members. I had a few supporters - thank you for that! - but it was largely one-way traffic. As someone pointed out, the argument seemed to split into two camps: A - Those who believe the image is the only thing that matters. B - Those who believe the image is important but so is the process.

The A camp comprised those hostile to my comments re Ralph Gibson and the B camp were sympathetic. It quickly became apparent that we could have been arguing about socialism v libertarianism, global warmers v sceptics or any other topic that completely polarises opinion. There was never, ever going to be a meeting of minds. The Camp A people just do not care about the process, the craftsmanship involved, the degree of difficulty or any of that. If it's a striking image, then it matters not a whit how it was achieved.

The Camp A people pretty quickly realised that I'm not particularly interested in the argument that it's all about the image: there's got to be more to it than that. I understand what they're saying but I just don't agree with it. What if photographers were able to stand before a landscape, download what they were seeing directly from their brain to an inkjet printer and dash off a print. The pure distillation of a vision into a photograph. Would that still be photography? Well, it would be in the minds of Camp A people.

This sort of thinking devalues photography in my opinion. In the minds of many non-photographers, it's the camera that now does all the work, isn't it? It also devalues it in a practical way as skill no longer receives its just reward. At my son's wedding last year, the photographer was a nice guy who was competent at wielding a DSLR. He was making a living doing wedding photography in the digital age and happily admitted that he wouldn't have stood a snowball's chance in hell of making it when film reigned supreme. Why? Because film is more demanding in every way and, to be blunt, he didn't have a clue beyond getting the picture in (auto)focus and the (matrix) metering right.

Open Access
The fact that digital is easier has levelled the playing field in professional photography but not in a good way. It's opened up access to anyone who has enough money to buy a decent camera. Yes, there are still some guys right at the top of the photography profession who are a cut above the rest but that was always the case. Beneath them, there is no longer any sort of meritocratic structure where ability is rewarded accordingly.

No longer do you have to work at your craft for years, no longer do you really have to know what you're doing because with digital you can just shoot away and make the adjustments suggested by the LCD screen. I do feel sorry for those guys around my age or older who spent years learning the ropes and now have to compete with someone who got a DSLR for their 21st birthday and read the manual.

In The Hole!

The stock photography industry, which once paid a good rate to photographers for the right to use their images in magazines and brochures, has been reduced to a drive-to-the-bottom free-for-all where publishers can buy the right to use photographs for literally pennies. Sadly, there are plenty of people out there who will settle for selling their photographs for sweeties - I used to be one of them. I have hundreds of photographs on stock photography websites and sell loads every year for a derisory amount given the time and effort involved in shooting them. Take this photo, In The Hole. I've got it on quite a few different stock agencies but on iStock it's sold around 45 times and earned just $70 dollars or so. In the good old days, with the same level of sales, it would have earned hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

There are some who make a living from stock and a few who do very well indeed but they tend to be the ones who got in right at the start with big portfolios and whose production line output is on an almost industrial level. Today, it might well take 500 digital sales to make the same as one decent stock shot would have fetched during the film era.

Irony Bypass
After the Ralph Gibson post, one reader, Ian from Ayrshire, asked if I could comment in a future blog on what it feels like to stimulate the level of debate I did at the RRF. "Did you mean every word? Did you fail to signpost the irony? Was there irony?" he asked.

The RRF thread I started has generated almost 500 replies and well over 15,000 views. I think it's great that lots of people thought enough about the issue of Ralph jumping ship to digital in his 76th year to want to respond. From the point of view of trying to reach new readers, I think it was a success.

"Enigma". My attempt at a Gibson-like image but taken before I even knew who
Ralph was. It's looking though the window of a door in an Edinburgh museum.

Obviously, there were plenty who couldn't disagree more with me and I'll never hear from them again. Fair enough. There were the closed-minded individuals who couldn't wait to say that they read the first couple of paragraphs and would go no further, so completely unacceptable was my point of view. There were those who said that Ralph should be free to make his own choices as if I, a libertarian, were trying to prevent him exercising his right as a free individual. But there were probably others who agreed with me or considered the topic thought-provoking enough to bookmark The Online Darkroom.

But I don't want anyone thinking I wrote the post here about Ralph just for that reason. I continue to be genuinely bemused at why Ralph, who loved describing just what was so special about film and darkroom work and why it was so vital to the images he produced, switched to digital. To answer Ian from Ayrshire directly, I meant every word and the only irony was in Ralph's decision to go digital after practically proselytising for decades about film.

It's a Pandora's Box and it's unlikely we'll ever get the digital genie back into the bottle (eat your heart out Barbara Cartland) but we can at least continue to talk up film photography for the great, unique art and craft that it is - and which digital imaging isn't. And that's what this website is all about.

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