Digital Photography

The first time I ever used a camera was two years ago. I went on a trip and one of my friends had a digital camera that I couldn't put down the entire time. Later that year I took two photography classes, a beginning darkroom class and a digital class. Since I was new to photography, I had no problems with digital and I didn't think that it was considered cheating. I never thought of myself as a fake for utilizing digital technology.

It wasn't until I got further into the photography program at U of A that I realized certain negative attitudes towards digital photography. It wasn't coming from any professors, but other students. Some thought that if you used digital, you weren't a "real" photographer.

This topic has been debated as long as the advent of the digital camera. In Lev Manovich's essay The Paradoxes of Digital Photography, she discusses the notion of photograph as truth. From my experiences, it seems that most people consider a photograph as a truthful event. However, just because it is initially easier to manipulate digital photographs, it doesn't mean that a film negative holds the exact truth. Anyone can skew an event by choosing what to focus on, what to frame, when to take the photo, etc. Photographic "moments" can be easily set up, and with the right subjects acting in the right way, anything can look natural or spontaneous.

I think of digital photography as just another tool to create art. Why can someone think it is valid to say that only film photography is "true" photography? With any other art form there are various ways of getting to a desired result. Ultimately, it should be up to the artist to decide what medium or technique is appropriate and relevant to the work that they are creating.

Reem Bader's Rayya

I'm a little late on blogging about this video since we saw it last week, but I definitely enjoyed the parts that had a split screen showing a car driving and people talking with no audio. It gave the visuals a serene quality but also a feeling of uneasiness. This also occurred when there was audio with no visuals. The speaking started to blend together and I started focusing less on the words and more on the black emptiness of the screen. The dance sequence seemed interesting, but since we didn't see the video all the way through, it seemed a little out of place. Maybe it would work well integrated throughout the entire video, but she probably explains the dance at some point in the film.