How has digital photography changed the emotional relevance of photography? This is not a question that I can answer, but it is a topic where I can point things out, and possibly get you thinking about how the question relates to you.  To start, I'm going to compare some changes in photography over the 40 years since I first took a photograph, developed a roll of film, or made a print. The simplest place to see changes is how the technology has changed. My first camera, an Argus C3, did not even have a light meter.  My current primary camera effectively has sixteen million of them. The Argus C3 was made, essentially unchanged from 1939 until 1966.  We can expect that after about two years, production of the Pentax K-5 will cease, if it hasn't already. In order to take a photo with the Argus C3, you look at the scene you want to photograph, and mentally compose the scene.  You then pull out a light meter, decide what areas are critical and measure the amount of light, or using experience you consider whether it is sunny or cloudy, and mentally estimate the amount of light. Based on these, considering things such as depth of field, the speed of your subject, you then set the aperture and shutter speed. Now, you look through the rangefinder, aim it at the critical area that you want in focus and turn the focus dial, and using parallax, set the range of the camera to focus it, or you estimate the distance and set it based on that. At this point you look through the view finder, compose the image, cock the shutter, brace yourself, let your breath out slightly, gently depress the shutter. Once you have taken the photo, you then advance the film so as not to get a double exposure the next time you take a photograph. With the K-5, or any modern digital camera, you can set it to a fully automated programmed mode, look through the viewfinder, slightly depress the shutter, at which point it will pick what it thinks you want to focus on, and focus the camera.  When you depress the shutter, it will analyze the scene, take an educated guess at the lighting conditions, set your aperture and shutter speed, and if you aren't holding the camera perfectly steady, it will move the sensor, to compensate, and dramatically reduce, or eliminate any blur from camera motion.  If I attach the GPS unit, it will not only read data from satellites and record the position to within a few feet, but at night, it can use the data from the GPS location, compass and three axis accelerometer and during a timed exposure, move the sensor to track the stars.  Not only can the camera also take video, but when using live view mode, when you take a picture, a computer inside the camera can recognize faces, and automatically focus the camera on them, rather than some sharp edge, such as the podium, in the foreground. With the Argus, once you have finished a roll of film, usually 24 or 36 exposures, you either take it someplace to get it developed. In 1973 you could often get your prints the next day, today the turnaround time is down to about an hour.  With the K-5, you press the display button, and look on the back, checking the histogram and blinkies to make sure that the photo is exposed perfectly. With the Argus, every time you press the shutter, it will cost you $0.50 to $1.00.  If you were to never erase the memory card in your camera, shoot in RAW mode rather than JPEG, and remembering that the K-5 has 16 MP resolution and 14 bits, rather than the normal 12 of data per pixel, and never delete your bad shots, for the $40 that two rolls of film, plus processing would cost, you could buy a high end 32GB SD card which will hold 1400 frames.  That $40 would buy you about 1TB of hard drive, which would hold something like 40,000 frames, if my math is correct. With the Argus, if you want to share a photo with your mom, 1,500 miles away, you take your print, or have a second print made, put it in an envelope, the the envelope in the post, and a day or three later, she gets it.  With the K-5, you put the memory card in your computer, download the file, and email it to her.  A few seconds later it is probably in her inbox waiting for her. If, instead, you use your cell phone, you can eliminate all the bother of transferring the file to a computer, and send it directly to her. If it is particularly dark, and you can't use a flash, you might use ISO 400 film, or developing it yourself, push it to 800 or even 1,600 if you're willing to accept a lot of grain, and might be able to shoot at a shutter speed as low as 1/30 second.  With the K-5, you can shoot at ISO 6,400 more cleanly than film at 400, get decent results at 16,000, and if you want go as high as ISO 51,000.  With image stabilization, you can hand hold as slow as 1/10 of a second, and I've gotten good results as slow as 1/3. In the past few years, cameras have changed tremendously, not only in their ability to get photographs, under conditions that for most of the history of photography were impossible, or nearly so, but also, for someone with almost no technical skill or knowledge to get technically decent photographs in a wide range of conditions. The other huge technological change is that duplicating an image went from a process that required technical skill, i.e. the ability to work in the darkroom, significant investment in infrastructure, i.e. the darkroom, and/or a non/trivial investment in materials i.e. paper & chemicals, or paying someone else to do the work in the darkroom. Not only that, but “perfect reproduction” of images was effectively limited to the person who had possession of the negative. Democratization of photography: you no longer need to know what you're doing to get a clear photo Free and instant duplication of photos. Tremendously higher performance. --------- No more professionals Photos in a much wider range of circumstances Phones are every where. Article on the same concepts http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/in-an-age-of-likes-commonplace-images-prevail/ -- Larry Colen lrc@red4est.com sent from i4est