The reality of digital photography.

Salton Sea. C Type hand print shot on film for the AOP Awards, London, 1998

Despite having no desire whatsoever to enter any kind of photography competition these days. I still like to keep afloat of whats going on. Looking through some recent competition invites (you know the ones everybody gets and charge you to enter) I realise just how much digital has changed photography. 

In regards to my forte, landscape photography, most of the time its hard to imagine what the original scene may actually have looked like, and there in lies the problem I have with digital imagery.  

The most important aspect of my work has been, and always will be, an accurate depiction of a scene. Adding or subtracting elements has no interest for me and renders an image as something else, now usually just referred to as fine art because there really is no other  name for it.  

Once the wow factor came from seeing something, like the above image, and realizing it actually exists.  But sadly these days HDR would have us believe otherwise. Its bad enough that retouch, which has always existed since portraiture began, has become so perfect that people believe he or she looks that way has become the norm. But to have this lie now spill over into all realms of photography is to me absurd and pointless.

Thankfully I can still do what I do, the only question is, will people believe its real.