Commentary # 29 ~ March 2009
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Digital's Decline and Demise?  -  Part I :

Future Shock


March 2009

- by Craig Wassel


The Photo Marketing Association (PMA) annual show has come and gone for 2009, and I have been reading with great interest as I do each year what some who attended have to say about what was new and what was shown. I have also been reading a good deal about what was not shown, and that has been just as interesting. Notably, no significant new pro digital bodies or sensor technologies were unveiled at PMA 2009, prompting reactions ranging from disappointment to some unusual projections.

To boil it down, I read some opinions suggesting that the digital format's prominence has peaked, and is now on it's way down as real professionals seeking the best possible quality return to shooting film. The internet certainly does not need another article presenting arguments about why, when, or how film is better than digital or vice versa, so I won't write in that direction. For the purposes of my commentary here, though, I am going to concede (assuming as many things being equal as possible) film delivers higher quality output that digital. For you digital devotees', please bear with me and read where I am going with all of this.

Back in November 2006, I wrote my first commentary for this site - "Photography's Digital Battleground" (link). In it, I talked about some of the differences between film and digital. I said that I shot mostly digital, but preferred film. I went on to say I felt digital could not replace film, and that I prayed film and darkrooms never die. Shortly after that, Joe Farace wrote in Shutterbug Magazine he felt my commentary was worth the read, but said:

        " . . . I can't quite shake the feeling that advocates of the daguerreotype
        and wet collodion process used many of these same arguments 100 years ago . . . "

I think I led Joe to believe I was arguing for the superiority of film when I really meant to say that film has a different look, and therefore can't really be replaced by digital. Still, Joe's point was spot-on and stays with me to this day.

Think about it. In the 1830's and 40's, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, glass negatives, and variations of wet collodian were all photography knew. By the late 1800's though, other processes had been invented. Very notably, nitrocellulose film was introduced by the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company. It made photography very accessible to amateurs with its ease of use. Despite its ease of use, many professional photographers continued to use established, traditional methods, and despite predictions of film's demise by many, it continued to grow in use and improve in quality.

Is any of this sounding at all ironically familiar?

History is not only repeating itself in photography, but I think it is giving us a bit of "Future Shock" as well. Most of us have heard this term before, but few of us have read the 1970 book of that name by Alvin Toffler. A sociologist and futurologist, Toffler described "Future Shock" as a personal perception and reaction that occurs when too much change happens in too short of a time period. It has been more than 20 years since I read Future Shock, but it had such an impact on me I still remember fairly well some of Toffler's examples.

One he outlined was speed of travel. For hundreds of years, our fastest mode of transportation was horse back. Then around 1822 the train was invented, and our travel speed roughly doubled. Around one hundred years later, the propellar airplane was invented and we could travel about three times as fast as before. In just under 40 years, the jet aircraft was invented, and travel speed nearly quadrupled. Rocket propulsion came about 20 years later, and we then had the ability to travel well past the speed of sound and out of our atmosphere. In short, each new mode of transportation has been exponentially faster than its predecessor, yet the time between the inventions has shrunk.

Photography's advances may not seem as dramatic in comparison, and it's easy for us to describe ourselves as "old timers" who learned on film. It is easy for us to say digital has little chance of being the choice of serious, real photographers. After all, if my photographic journey began when I was 11, then my introduction to photography was 33 years ago. Thirty-three years is 75% of my lifetime thus far, and film has ruled during most of that span. In the larger spectrum of time, though, we are not old timers. It just feels that way since by nature the human frame of reference is short. Photography is only about 170 years old, and really just barely out of its own infancy. In its history, though, it has already shown the world Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, glass negatives, salt prints, crayon portraits, cyanotypes, albumen prints, stereoviews, lantern slides, various types of film, and a few others I have not even mentioned. Even for those who have been shooting for what seems like a long time, it is really a small percentage of years of photography's history.

And now there is digital.

What do we make of all this? It's pretty simple. Don't count digital out as ever being able to compete in quality with film. Joe Farace was right to point out the very same arguments were made about film when it first appeared on the scene and was up against what were then traditional processes. What are many saying today? They label film as "traditional", and are saying, "go back to it - digital does not now and will probably never equal film's quality".

Are they right? Maybe, or maybe not. Only time will tell. History, though, does have an amazing way of repeating itself; and as Alvin Toffler wrote, the rapid advancement of technology has an amazing way of shocking us with how it can leap dramatically forward in an incredibly short period of time. Is digital already past its prime? Keep in mind it has only been an affordable and readily accessible format for ten years. I think to project its decline and demise for serious professional use other than photojournalism or sports is premature. Making that projection based on the assertion that digital has not yet equaled film in quality, that it is unlikely to ever do so, and that there was nothing earthshakingly new in digital at this year's PMA might be the result of a low vantage point. All things considered, what do you think?


" . . . The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated . . . "

~ Mark Twain ~








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" . . . Very notably, nitrocellulose film was introduced by the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company. It made photography very accessible to amateurs with its ease of use. Despite its ease of use, many professional photographers continued to use established, traditional methods, and despite predictions of film's demise by many, it continued to grow in use and improve in quality . . .

. . . Is any of this sounding at all ironically familiar? . . . . "





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