Not better, just different.

The Great Wave. Gustav Le Grey 1857 (two negatives)

North Shores, Doyle Le Blue, 2006 (color neg 8/10”)

Lake Tahoe, CA, 2016 (Digital)

It’s difficult knowing where to start with the touchy subject of photography and technology. This time last year I wrote a whole thesis on the subject with an emphasis social media and got so involved I printed the 12,000 word manifesto and gave it to my students for reading (whether they read it or not remains to be seen..)

Technology was the beginning of photography in the age of invention, the process itself created by scientists, chemists and rich fella called Talbot, a man who could not “draw for toffee.” Today we dress up digital photography as a new way of thinking and being creative, but really it is just a pixel rehash of what has gone before. For example, the old age issue making the sky darker in a landscape photograph due to the ground often being so much darker was tackled in a number of ways; Either, using two negatives, like Gustave Le Gray ‘The Gray’ long ago, or much later, a graduation filter. Or better still, wait for some weather. Today of course we can add digital filters or burn in the sky, or if you are really lazy, and a numpty, add a pre-shot sky by someone else because no one will know unless you tell them (which you won’t). It’s the same old toot, just done in a different way.