Digital technologies vs traditional photography

Over the last century human civilization has made huge advancements in technology. Technologies allowed humans to develop such processes as mass production, cured countless diseases, increased technologies, and of course gave us TiVo. In today’s world technology can allow us to just about anything we want, with computers we can chat with people on the other side of the world, surf, and immerse ourselves in digital/virtual worlds. While increasing digital technology is generally beneficial, there are some aspects of technology that I consider to be inferior to technologies of earlier decades. These include technologies such as digital cameras and consumer photo finishing software. Now before I go further, I must admit that I have a digital camera and find it so convenient and easy to use that I haven’t picked up an analog camera in years. The one aspect of digital cameras that I find inferior is the quality of pictures, or the level of artistic creativity that user must possess in order to obtain that perfect shot. Today just about anyone can use a digital camera, just point, shoot and delete the ones you don’t want. From there users can hop on a computer and run the picture thru photo editing software, to eliminate red-eye, stretch the image, and even insert other images into the picture with little to no sign of doctoring. While these new technologies have increased the casual use of photography, I believe that utilizing such technologies actually detract from the artistic quality of photos (or at least the ones that claim to be artistic), and instead I see the gap between art and replication to be widening. In past years, to obtain that perfect shot or picture, photographers had to incorporate personal creativity and artistry into designing the shot, and have a strong knowledge of which lens to use, and how light can play add or take away from a picture in order to be successful. Now we have technologies that can automatically alter a picture and fix any anomalies. While I do recognize that such technologies has actually opened up new artistic styles, I personally believe that using digital cameras is almost like cheating, and that the use of digital picture technologies does not classify them as true artists, just as people who only play Rock Band cannot be classified as real musicians. While there are always arguments for and against the use of digital technologies, the fact remains that the more photographers start to depend on digital technologies, allowing computer sub-routines to perform all the work, that they further distance themselves from their artistic capabilities, surrendering their own skills to new technologies.