If it's wrong I don't wanna be right! (Part One)

I like to read photography blogs and forums to get inspiration and hear what's going on in the world of photography. It isn't long before I'm skimming past one of the great debates like Canon vs. Nikon (or Nikon vs. Canon if you prefer), or the ever popular Is HDR Photography Evil?

I generally don't get drawn into these discussions.It's not that I'm above fanboy debates, in my youth I had a favourite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (he had swords it was obvious to me he was the best). I also had a Nintendo and was practically trained to laugh at Sega Megadrive owners with their shitty blue hedgehog as I professed the wonders of a fat Italian plumber.

But there is one discussion that I do find myself getting pulled into and that the moralistic 'Digital processing is cheating' and 'film is better than digital' rhetoric.

Now I don't have the years or the inclination to argue film or digital, suffice to say I see them as two different journeys to the same place (where one is unfortunately more cost prohibitive than the other). But I can't abide some of the snobbery I read towards digital photography and how the processing is "not pure photography". Aside from the fact that many of the techniques employed in a digital program like Photoshop are actually based on techniques employed in the darkroom (google 'Ansel Adams post processing' for many an interesting read), but digital processing is almost a necessity for digital photographers.

For instance, if you have read my blog before you'll notice that I border on the obsessive when it comes to black and white photography. Digital cameras capture in colour so the only option for me to create a black and white image is to digitally convert it (below shows a 'before and after' of the main image at the start of this post).

Colour is in many ways, the cause of this rift. Going back to our 'film advocates' (to put it nicely), they often recommend which type of film is the best and why. Different types of film offer different quality, sharpness and colour representation. Whereas apart from a few adjustments that can be made in a digital camera, the images produced are visually similar if not identical.

So perhaps using a different type of film is cheating? Of course it's not, there is no such thing. But here's some food for thought, would Steve McCurry's photograph of 'The Afghan Girl' have been so historic if it had not been captured with Kodachrome film (renowned for its vibrant colours)? Would those amazing eyes have jumped from the pages of National Geographic or any subsequent publication or exhibition if the picture had been taken with some cheap lousy film that bleached all of the colours?

There's been a lot of noise in the industry in the last year or so about digital manipulation and many agencies are banning post-processing altogether. I don't agree with this as I do not see colour correction, adding contrast or increasing sharpness of an image to be an inappropriate process. But then I do understand the ethical reasons for being strict about manipulation, especially when it comes to photojournalism.

Below are some shots I took in London recently . . . and yes they've all been digitally converted to lovely black and white :-)