Does Using Technology Make You a Lesser Photographer?

Technology allowed me to combine three different images to create this scene (click to enlarge)
X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 17mm; f/5.6; ISO 800

The other day I was thinking (as my wife says, "There you go thinking again!") about all of the technology available to us as photographers. I was thinking about the technology that can and routinely does influence the images we make.  The technology that allows us to make images that we simply could not have otherwise made in past years of manual, non-electronic film photography.  The question in my mind arose, "Are we better photographers because of this technology or is the technology a crutch that takes much of the skill out of the craft"?  That question aside, I don't think there is any doubt that images made in today's digital whiz-bang world are of a (potentially) much higher quality than in the past.  But that doesn't answer the question.

Technology comes in many forms, from digital cameras (I like to call them a computer with a lens) to computer designed lenses to computers for cataloging and editing our images to apps that allow us to find and make photographs that we couldn't otherwise find.  Autofocus, auto exposure, panoramic imaging, focus stacking, compositing, film simulations, 20 frames per second burst rates, 1/32,000th of a second shutter speeds, HDR, high resolution images in-camera, editing software that can completely change reality and the ability to photograph in almost complete darkness with incredibly high ISOs are just a few examples.  Technology is an enabler when it comes to creating images. But it can be a drawback as well.

I asked myself, "Does the use of all the available technology in photography today make one a lesser photographer?"  Does relying heavily on technology cheating in some sense? Should we think of a photographer who incorporates all available technology into his or her work not as good or as competent a photographer as one who is "old school," fully understands all of the theories and physics of light and uses as many manual techniques as possible, film cameras or uses his or her digital camera in the least technological way?

Granted, technology has to be a part of photography in a fundamental way as photography consists of the registering of photons landing on a recording medium though either mechanical/optical or electronic/optical means.  So, let's go just beyond that and ask ourselves, "Do the best photographers minimize their use of technology as an enabler and crutch to achieve their images?"  We might refine that to then ask, "Do the best art photographers minimize their use of technology?"  I can understand scientific and certain other types of photographers having to utilize as much technology as available just to get their jobs done.

Technology allows us to "bang" through a photographic situation making potentially hundreds of exposures in a few seconds without having to think much about what we are doing. Technology gives us instant feedback so we can see our captured images before we move a single step which, in turn, allows us to produce competent images but potentially not even understand the instrument with which we are working.  Technology allows us to be lazy with our photography.  Why even carry a camera?  Whip out a mobile phone, point it in a direction and touch the screen!  Easy.

Made with a completely manual Pentax 6X7 camera and 90mm f/2.8 lens, on Kodak Tri-X 120 film,
then hand developed (by me) in Kodak D-76 at a 1:1 dilution. (click to enlarge)
Is this image better than the one at the top of this post because it was made using a fully manual process?

Here is the crux of it to me.  Should your craft, or any craft, be hard?  Should it require study, contemplation, thinking, practice and acquired skill over time?  Does the Malcolm Gladwell espoused requirement in his book "Outliers" of a minimum of 10,000 hours of practice before one achieves greatness hold water?*  Should a craft require time and work to be good at it or is it okay for the craftsman to be semi-competent, maybe even lazy, impatient, but using all available technology still produce a competent or even good final product?  Should a good craftsman have to engage in years of practice?

One of the things I remember being taught years and years ago while first learning photography was that no one cares how difficult it was or how much you had to study or what you had to go through to make any particular photograph.  People will judge the photograph on its own merits and it doesn't matter what it took to create it.  It matters to you and you can't help think about what went into creating a particular image, but most others really don't care.  They only care about the image itself.

I've found a dichotomy of thought on this subject.  One side says you should use whatever means you can find to achieve your goal.  The other, purists if I can give them a label, think that sticking to the very basics and only using the the absolute minimum of technology makes for purer art.  You see this second group illustrated by photographers who carry around an 8" X 10" film  or like camera.

Remember when digital photography first became accessible to the common person?  One of the defining editing questions was "do you utilize all the features available to you in Photoshop or do you only do what you could have done in the analog darkroom?"  That was a huge discussion point for several years.  You don't hear much about that any longer.  At first, I was in the "only do what I could have done in my darkroom" camp but over time I found myself realizing that I was not making photojournalistic or documentary images, but trying to create some sort of personal art and, as art, I should be able to utilize Photoshop in any way necessary to realize my vision.  Should that philosophy apply to finding and creating all of your images?

I think you will have to answer these questions for yourself.  I can't answer for you.  I love technology.  I love old analog photography with manual only cameras, slow black and white film and manual focus lenses as well.  I loved working in my black and white darkroom and wish I still had one.  

I once wrote that I figured out why I love photography so much.  For me, it provides a perfect balance for those left-brain/right-brain needs and differences.  I'm primarily left handed (the only person ever in my family, they told me when I was young) which makes me right-brain dominant (creativity and art side), but I love technology, math, science, etc. which is primarily a left-brain attribute.  Photography balances my fascination for technology as well as my need to create art and things of beauty.  

I don't know the answer to my original question.  I do know there will always be at least two schools of thought and I'm firmly in one of them!  LOL  Kind of like the well-known American baseball great Yogi Berra once said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"  You'll have to decide which fork in the technological road you wish to take for yourself.

In the end, technology is good and technology can make keep you from fully understanding as well as allow you to be lazy.  I utilize technology but don't necessarily see it as bad, evil or wrong to use when creating art.  But how much technology?



*Gladwell insists that the common interpretation of his observation concerning the 10,000 hours of practice has been popularly oversimplified and misinterpreted.  Talent, or natural ability, is the other factor that is important for greatness in any endeavor.  Gladwell states, 

"There is a lot of confusion about the 10,000 rule that I talk about in Outliers. It doesn't apply to sports. And practice isn't a SUFFICIENT condition for success. I could play chess for 100 years and I'll never be a grandmaster. The point is simply that natural ability requires a huge investment of time in order to be made manifest. Unfortunately, sometimes complex ideas get oversimplified in translation."

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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