On internet photography forums, die-hard film photographers decry the proliferation of digital cameras and claim that they ruining the art of photography.  Interestingly, there are web sites dedicated to “100% pure analog” photography.  But, obviously, any pictures posted on those sites have been digitized and to some degree digitally manipulated.

By the way, I take exception to using the term “analog” to describe film photography, but that’s not the point of this article.  Perhaps that one will get its own article some day.

Back to the issue at hand.

For some people, it’s bad enough that with a digital camera and a computer, you can easily exceed the quality of results that film photographers and dark-room Gollums are able to produce.  But, the icing on the cake is that now that the majority of the world has switched to digital, film and processing has become more expensive and harder to find.  Some film junkies fear the end of an age in which they are experts.  They were comfortable with the way things used to be.  They were happy being masters of a difficult craft.

But the times they are a-changin’.  A few photographers are grasping at straws in their fight against the digital age.  They attack digital photography in any way imaginable.  They say it’s not “real” photography because you can’t hold a digital image in your hand.  They say that it's unethical because it’s too easy to “cheat” and manipulate a picture on the computer.  They say that the quality is inferior and that film holds some magical properties that can never be duplicated in any other way.  They attack digital cameras themselves, saying that they are disposable pieces of junk, and that if you buy one, you are buying into a system of planned obsolescence.  They say that digital cameras simply won’t hold up in the same environments that film cameras will, and that memory cards and digital storage in general are unreliable.  They complain about the auxiliary equipment needed to fully take advantage of a digital camera.  These people sound like little children who are about to lose a security blanket.

They're are stuck in a snapshot of time and technology and refuse to acknowledge that methods before or after can be just as valid.

Whether their arguments about the technical merits of digital photography hold water or not (and I can admit that they have some valid complaints), they are usually in denial about the essence of their fear.  They are afraid that all the effort they have exerted toward learning a CRAFT is going to be rendered useless.

But, they can have no true argument about the ART of digital photography.

And, that's the point I am trying to make here.  What's the difference between an art and a craft?  And, which is a higher endeavor?  I think it’s clear and easy to understand.  Most photographers just haven’t stopped to think about it.  For many, it doesn’t matter.

A craft is a technique.  It’s a method to accomplish something.  Using a table-saw, band-saw, router, surface planer, belt sander, glue, clamps, stain, varnish, and a paintbrush to make a piece of furniture is a craft.  The acts of starting seedlings, watering, fertilizing, transplanting, insulating, and weeding to plant a garden comprise a craft.  Using a typewriter or computer and printer to get your words on paper is a craft.  Developing, and printing photos is a craft.  A craft is usually the method to accomplish something greater.

Is a craft a worthwhile enterprise?  Sure.  There is a lot to be achieved by mastering a technique.  But, for most people, the craft is a path to art.  When my wife’s friends show her their scrapbooks, they don’t want her to say, “Wow, you must have really good scissors!”  Or, “your gluing technique is phenomenal!”  They really want her to compliment them on the layout, the thoughtfulness, and the creativity.  They usually want her to appreciate the significance of the event that was the reason for the scrapbook.

That is art.  Art is an expression of something that the artist considers important.  The methods are innumerable, but the purpose is the same – to communicate emotion.

Normal people, when reading a book, don’t ask themselves, “Was this written by hand, typed on a typewriter, or dictated to a secretary?”  It has no bearing on the meaning of the work.  When admiring a beautiful garden, you never wonder if the gardener resorted to gas powered machinery rather than working the entire garden with a spade.  Nobody complained that Michelangelo used paint and paint brushes rather than mashed berries and twigs to create the Mona Lisa.

So, it’s ridiculous that some people, when looking at a photograph, think the most important thing is whether it was captured on film or on a memory card.  Those people are confused about what art is, and they, for some reason, place more value in an arbitrary craft than in the art it can be used to make.

It’s only the people that have some sort of investment in the old craft that question the new techniques.  The same happens over an over again every time a new technique is developed.  Painters criticized photography and said it was a gimmick and could never be as significant as oil on canvas.  Large format photographers belittled the “toy” 35mm cameras and said enlargements just don’t yield adequate quality.  So, it’s to be expected that some people condemn digital photography.

And, when the next watershed change in photography happens, people will complain about it, too.

I’ll continue to use the best tools I can get to make the best pictures I know how.  It’s the result that are important to me, not the method.