[LargeFormat] The Big Digit

[Marco Milazzo]

This is something I wonder about concerning digital vs. film:

Using film forces you to look closely at the subject because you're trying
to fit the subject's contrast range, color, etc. to the capabilities of the
film, and to the effects you're trying to achieve with the film.

Because of this need, there is a LOT of photographic information about
subject-matter in traditional photography.  For instance:

* Portrait photographers develop a "feel" for how much hairlight is required
for different shades of hair,
* Landscape photographers see nuances in shadows that the average person
doesn't,
* We look at the sky and imagine how film might render it,
* Same for skin tones, specular reflections and a BUNCH of other qualities
various subjects might possess. (You can probably supply dozens more).

With digital (as I understand it), little control is possible until after
the shot is taken.  Then you can bring the image into Photoshop and mangle
it as you will.

Isn't this a different way of working -- and therefore of seeing -- which
will result in a different type of photography?  If so, what will the
difference be?

In other words, say it's 50 years from now and the whole round world has
gone digital except for a few diehards such as Uncle Dick and me, holed up
alone in our mountain caves, closely guarding our dwindling supply of D-76
and Tri-X.  Years of looking, and thinking about contrast, color, and a host
of other factors have trained us to see subtleties and nuances that others
miss.

What do the "others" see -- what we saw before we took up photography?  What
(rather "how") will they see after practicing digital photography 20 years?

Yes, digital is just another photographic tool and there's nothing
inherently superior about it, or the film & Chemical process.  But it seems
to me that that it will change things fundamentally, in the way photography
changed painting after the mid-19th century.  I'm not saying that's a bad
thing, but I wonder how.

Marco,
El Paso del Norte, Tejas