National Geographic magazine.
By Phillip A Jones
3 Jan 2008
Is Photography Dead?
Posted Jan 2, 2008
That's the pessimistic headline of Peter Plagens's recent Newsweek article on the fate of photography. He contends that the digitalization of photography is leading to its demise as an art form.
"Film photography's artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real that occurred in front of the camera. A digital photograph, on the other hand, can be a Photoshop fairy tale, containing only a tiny trace of a small fragment of reality."
Digital photography has leveled the playing field such that a commoner with computer can create art, so if the masses can create faux photographs, then photography must no longer be considered art. Or is photography merely in an awkward adolescence, thrown off balance by a few pixel-grabbing headlines of photo manipulators who tarnish the credibility of reality in front of the lens?
Perhaps photographers should adapt the brilliant precedent writers set by segregating themselves from the digital masses�cleave off the untrained commoner sitting at home, pecking words on a laptop, grammar and spelling checked only by digital word processing software, who dare publish commentary to the world�by labeling them not writers but bloggers. So that no one goad the question: Is writing dead?
� Ken Geiger
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