Defending Digital Photography

I wish I was a better blogger. If I was, I could actually have a source to cite here. But I don't. I pathetic.

I read an article recently that basically said that digital cameras were killing the "art" of photography because the transient nature of digital storage encouraged people to immediately ditch "non-perfect" pictures. The author of the article supposed that so many of our most cherished photos from the pre-digital ages were the cast-off ones. The ones that at first glance may not appear perfect but actually wound up capturing a moment that was not perfect or posed or predisposed. He lamented the toss-awayness of digital data.

At first read, I agreed with him. I have often discarded photos I've taken while looking at them on a little screen about 1" by 3/4." What treasures did I lose by casually hitting the delete button on my camera? Especially because my camera holds 200+ pictures and I have never come within 50 of running out of space. Why not hold on to it? Storage is cheap. I spent the next month or so holding on to every single click.

In doing so, however, it made me a little more conscious of each click. And I began to realize the flip side of the whole digital thing. Storage is cheap. Film is cheap. Developing the pictures is cheap. Even printing pictures is cheap.

Since moving to digital, I have clicked the camera shutter more times than I had previously. Because the marginal cost of one more picture is practically nil. But the marginal benefit could be huge. Many times, my son is doing something somewhat mundane--playing with his sippy cup, laughing with the dog, riding his play train, dancing, napping. The things kids do every day. But because I was able to snap 25 pictures in 3 minutes, I was able to get the perfect shot--that captured the exact look of concentration as he tried to get that last drop of juice out of his sippy cup. The look of pure joy as he danced in a little circle waving his arms around, as he opened his mouth in the beginning of a snore in his afternoon nap.

I thank the people who brought photography to the digital age. For I have been able to capture the emotions and experience of my son's life more than I ever could have in the film age.