In the Sunday Times Bryan Appleyard calls digital photography and photoshop the tools of the devil that destroys the art of photography and that God shoots film with a Leica.

This is fanaticism, read the article replacing the words “digital” with “western capitalism” and “analog” with “muslim” and you will see that Appleyard advocates hate.

I don’t hate analog nor do I hate digital, they are both tools that you can use well or miss use.

To take great photographs you need to take control over your tool, never let it control you. It is true that it is easy to let a digital camera make al the choices for you, but using photoshop on your pictures is about taking control over your visual language.

To say as Appleyard “Now it is safest to assume that everything has been Photoshopped and therefore that nothing is true, either to reality or to the art of photography.” Is absurd. Manipulation of the image has existed since the birth of photography. When working in the darkroom you are not just printing the image mindlessly, if you have any pride in what you are doing, you are dodging and burning (making things lighter or darker) adjusting the colors, cropping etc. You might even decide to manipulate the picture with a technique called “Combination printing” the art of layering separate images to create a single picture. The first example of this that I can find is Oscar Gustave Rejlander’s “The Two Ways of Life” from 1857. To imply that pictures taken with a analog camera do not lie is ridicules. When you compose an image you are already telling a white lie, by choosing what you wish to show and what you wish to hide. Photography has never ben about the truth, it has always been about creating an image of reality. Today most of us know that.

If you use a Lomo you submit to the antics of that camera and you lose control, the camera is creating those weird and wonderful effects, not you. Even if you use a analog Leica I would say that you have less control then digital, because the film that you are using is going to determine your white balance, contrast etc… I would say the opposite of Appleyard, that digital photography empowers you and gives you a greater scope to be creative within. If people do not chose to take control over the digital camera then it is a problem with the people and not the tool.

However Appleyard does make one point that I think is very interesting and true. If you take pictures of people on the streets with what essentially looks like a toy camera, people are less likely to be threatened by it. Hence if you want to take some interesting candid pictures of people in public today a good option is a Lomo. This also encapsulates my point, you should chose the right tool for the job. One day it may be a Lomo, the next may be a Hasselblad H4.

I would like to tell Appleyard this, let go of your hate, it will only lead to the dark side.

####

In response to Bryan Appleyard’s article “No more cheap shots” In the Culture supliment of The Sunday Times July 18, 2010. You can read the article her from Appleyard’s web page.

Some examples on photographic manipulated through the ages:

www.time.com top 10 Doctored Photos

Timeline of fantastic photomontage and its possible influences, 1857-2007