Film or Digital: Part - 4

Digital is More Fun

The reason why digital photography has taken off at an incredible rate over the past few years is quite simple. As more and more people are discovering, digital photography is great fun.

It is simple to realise and say this, but more difficult to explain exactly why this is. But I think the major difference between film and digital photography is not a matter of technology or new skills that it involves, but of the different social roles it involves.

Digital - a Rise in Sharing

The take-up of digital photography over the past few years has happened at a much greater rate than most of the pundits anticipated. Their forecasts were largely based on technical issues, but the driving force has actually been changes in how we have come to use cameras and photographs, and in particular in the ability to share them with others.

Although some people have converted from being users of film to users of digital, there has been a great increase in the number of people taking photographs, and in the number of photographs that we each take.

Digital has brought the social interactions involved in photography very much to the foreground. People out with friends will take pictures on their digital cameras and then can immediately pass the camera around so they can share them. Working with people on the street, I’ll often do the same, showing the people I’ve photographed the picture I’ve made of them. With phone cameras, you can even share the images immediately with absent friends.

Being a photographer has often been seen as being an observer of events rather than taking part in them. Many spent long hours on their own in darkrooms too. Although it wasn’t a stereotype that fitted many of the great characters of photography, some of whom were adventurers and extremely gregarious storytellers, it gave photography a certain unattractive reputation. A rather more glamorous reputation came from fashion photography, fuelled by the images in films such as 'Blow Up' in the 1960s, but it was still that of a loner, if one of attractive and sexy genius.

Digital cameras have put their users back into the centre of things, with the taking of pictures becoming much more a social activity, something that can be immediately shared with everyone involved.

This different usage of digital cameras has also influenced camera design. Sharing your pictures when you are taking them has made people want better and larger displays on the back of the camera. Using the display to take your pictures means that you are beginning that sharing experience, holding your camera out towards those you are photographing, and seeing the image exactly as they will see the picture you take. Holding the camera to your eye and looking through a viewfinder does seem much more like spying on people, although most photographers find it a more convenient way to work, especially in sunny conditions.

Many cameras have now dispensed completely with a viewfinder, at least in part to enable the viewing screen to be larger. Since holding the camera at arm’s length greatly increases camera movement while taking pictures, technology has come to the aid of users with image stabilisation, seldom of great importance when we used cameras at our eye, but near essential when we wave them in front of us.

Of course you could share photographs before, but it was a different and much less immediate activity, waiting for the films to be processed, then meeting up again to pass the prints or an album around. There were instant materials, but prices per exposure were too high for frequent use by most people.

The continuing growth of the Internet also makes easier the process of sharing photographs, through online albums and services such as Flikr. Digital images can be shared directly, while sharing images taken on film requires extra effort, either by scanning them yourself (if you own a scanner) or getting scans written to CD-ROM as a part of the processing.

For most people, it is these social aspects of digital that have made it more attractive than film, and any technical or quality considerations are very much less important. Of course it helps that in several respects digital is easier to use.