Photography: I Don’t Know, Jack

As usual, I was sitting here this morning reading my copy of the Paragould Daily Press from Paragould, Arkansas, when I spied Miranda Remaklus' interview with Dr. Jack Zibluk, "Digital age eliminates much from photography." You remember Jack, the associate professor and photojournalism coordinator in the Department of Journalism and Printing at Arkansas State University?

Anyway, I'm reading the article when Jack starts saying we've lost our mojo by moving to digital photography. OK, that's not a direct quote. This is: "Photography and photojournalism can be seen as less special if everyone can do it."

Call me crazy, but he's saying the process is more important than the product to people who only see the product! I couldn't disagree more. It doesn't make any difference how you get your finished photo--it's that you get the photo! I celebrate that Ansel Adams hiked into the backwoods with a heavy camera, heavy tripod and delicate photographic plates, but that's not why his photos are great. It's the photos.

Like many others, Professor Zibluk's attitude is shortsighted. The technology of photography has not trumped human skill. It's only enhanced it. And it's not the first time. Moving from plates to film was a great leap which benefited photography as much as it benefited photographers. The same can be said for cameras small enough to carry.

Take a site like DPChallenge. Its weekly open challenges specifically exclude photos that are digitally manipulated in ways not possible in a darkroom or which originate in an analog format (by virtue of requiring EXIF data). Last week's results are proof positive digital imagery hasn't lessened photography's end result.

Speaking of digital photography, he continues:

But with that technology the implications of what you are doing go away. The feeling of what you are doing is different. That romance is gone. You don't have the excitement of waiting to see the image you took being developed in a dark room. You can snap an image and look at it immediately on screen.

To me, he's missing the real romance. Photographic bliss comes only when you take a shot that's good and looks exactly as you visualized it when you pressed the shutter. A modern versatile digital camera that can do lots of things isn't necessarily making that process easier. More versatility means more complexity. Look how many different settings you can change on your camera. Each setting has the ability to enhance or screw your picture. You still need to master that.