Chance or Intent

Along the same vein of my Rant post, I was speaking with a fellow artist/photographer, SJ Hammack about how she thought digital photography was a totally new medium. the rules are all different, so there can't really be a comparison. My thought is that all digital is trying to do is emulate what its analogue counterpart could do, just much more quickly with more possibilities.

On another forum I frequent, the question came up about being a lessor photographer if you never shot film. It is funny to think I am now one of the old codgers who remembers the good ole days. Anyway, this particular forum is made up of mostly newer shooters who began their careers as digital shooters (at most, the last 6 years). Some are quite amazing, others not so. I managed to be diplomatic and brought up the fact that I have a reference coming from film as to what is possible in print, where photography was all about the print, not as digital files that could be viewed only on screen or seen as a machine made "plastic" print. If you've never seen a print on Gallerie or Portriga paper, your missing the point entirely. I'll not even mention what a Platinum/Paladium print looks like...

What I often hear on these forums is what are the quick and easy ways out. There isn't the skill involved as much when we relied only on film. We knew in the back of our heads that every exposure we shots cost money. That alone would hone your skills quite a bit. I shot a few weddings back in my film days, and I remember shooting roughly 10 to 12 rolls of film - at least 360 to 430+ exposures. Now some of the photographers on that forum are shooting in the area of 1000 to up to as many as 3000 exposures. If you have your cards, you can shoot as much as you want without any expense.

And here lies the concept to the title of this blog. The question could be, "Are we any lessor photographers if we rely more so on chance, than on intent?"

SJ Hammack may be correct in saying that photography is not the same, that it is a different medium as to what it once was. I'm feeling more and more the like the old timer who will always reflect upon the way things used to be... And time moves on...