I love digital photography, and my first digital SLR is Sony Alpha A350. Unlike film, digital photography has created convenience for many people. I can review my photos instantly without worrying about the cost and time of developing the rolls of film. As technology advances, digital photography today is made affordable to many people. The best digital camera today is our smartphone.
Have you ever wondered what the true nature of digital photography is? Is digital photography an art or science?
Is Digital Photography An Art?
Photography is about the expression of feeling and thought visually. To many individuals, photography is considered to be the next era of painting or drawing. There are even sites out there, like Funk Trunk Chicago, to help teach people about photography and how they can improve their skills and technique. Therefore, this makes photography an art.
In digital photography, the photographer can quickly enhance any piece of digital photographs. By changing the hue, saturation and value using digital tools like VSCO or Adobe Lightroom, digitally processed photographs can express different emotions and stories visually.
Expressing feelings through visuals is the capability of digital photography. These feelings are psychological messages. A digitally processed photo shows the creativity and artistic side of the photographer.
Is Digital Photography Science?
While many feel that digital photography is art, some individuals argue that science is the real nature of digital photography. While a painter can paint something non-existent in this world through his or her imagination, a photographer cannot do that. A photographer merely captures the moment.
The depth of field, optical effects and noise can be computed through scientific calculations. Known as the Law of Reciprocity, digital photography also uses critical aspects of photography such as lenses, shutter speed, aperture and exposure to capture a photograph. Physics are involved in digital photography when to camera internals and operations.
Through science, by adjusting the steps in speed, aperture and exposure, beautiful digital photographs are captured.
Therefore, The True Nature Of Digital Photography Is
There is no conclusion. As a digital photographer, I will say both art and science play a significant role in producing beautiful photographs.
I will need an artistic point of view to tell my story in my photos, while I will also need the science to capture beautiful moments. To me, what matters most are these pictures I have captured are my important memories.