Maris,
I do love the smell of the darkroom and the excitement of seeing images appear through liquid on paper dancing from side to side with my tongs in a tray. I am in awe of skilled film photographers and am grateful that everything I've learned came from that. So I understand being a dedicated craftsman in film and I'm the first to cheer you on. You want to blow the trumpet for real film and true photographer go ahead. You earned the right! It even has a flair about it when you imply that digital photography is somehow "not real photography" but more of an upstart process, masquerading as the "real thing". If you want to hold that opinion, that's fine, like supporting Manchester United or insisting in communion in Latin or Armenian Chistmas in January, after everyone else have already returned presents they don't want.
To go further and link Digital photography to the art and craft of painting surprises me! Doesn't this underestimate the skill in creating likeness by hand with a brush, where before there was blank canvas. You must agree that anyone with little to no training or experience can make a reasonably exact detailed likeness of anything with a good camera. Almost no one can do the same with a good paint brush and set of paints!
Asher
I have made pictures by hand that are
exactly identical to those that can be produced by "digital photography". There is no need for anyone to duplicate my efforts. They work just as well as thought experiments. Here are recent examples:
1. Make a photograph of a clear blue sky. A friend shoots the sky on their Canon 350D and processes the file in the usual way. We notice all the pixels are the same. One pixel will do just as well as 6 million. Checking the value of this pixel we get a PANTONE value #291. I then go to a Pantone swatch book and scissor out a small square of #291 and stick it in the middle of a mount board. Voila, a photograph of the sky! I challenge people who choose to disagree to explain why it isn't.
2. Make a photograph of a small uniform area of sandy beach. I look intensely at the sand and memorise its colour value. I then get a piece of paper to receive a mark forming substance with the right colour value. Surely the mark making substance does not have to be Epson pigment ink or Canon ink. Anything will do as long as it matches the sand. I choose sand! Yes, I paint a sticky rectangle (PVA glue) on the paper and then pour sand on it. When the glue dries I brush off the loose sand and I have a perfect photograph of that little uniform patch of beach. Remember, I did execute the light, lens, megapixel sensor, memory, processor, printer sequence as faithfully as any other digital picture making process.
Digital picture making is mechanised painting and drawing. To borrow the thoughts of Jim Galli, think of what we have gained, think of what we have lost.