In my daily life, I struggle when choosing between analog and digital. This happens with watches, books, music, writing, and of course photography. The list goes on.
Me being me, I sat down and took some notes in a notebook. I came up with the following observation that might help me better understand why I sometimes like one medium over another. Hopefully, this will relate to your readers out there and they’ll get some benefit from it.
Choosing between mediums.
For me, choosing between mediums is always a difficult decision. Digital be it in smartwatches, cameras, music equipment, or digital note-taking will always be more practical. In fact, digital always followed the analog method and improved on its shortcomings. So why do I struggle to choose? Why do I always have difficulty on what to choose between the two mediums?
The answer is simple. Although digital is better in nearly everything, analog, on the other hand, gives you something that, although not perfect is more interesting and has character.
Take a mechanical watch as an example. It will never have the features of a smartwatch. It will never have a GPS, heart rate monitor, step recorder, or Bluetooth functionality to connect to your phone and other devices. What offers is a simple dial, showing time and a mechanical complication to make it as accurate as possible in doing such a task. It removes all the bells and whistles and gives you just one thing — time.
The same goes for other mediums. When taking notes on a notebook or reading a book there is that sense of pleasure in just writing things down or folding the reading book. The smell of paper, and the bookmark placed between pages when you finish reading. Their digital counterparts have the same functionality done in a better and more practical way. Although the process is improved, there is that lack of “organic” feel. Everything is digitized. It is better yet at times lacks “character”.
How all this relates to photography
Thinking about this and translating it in relation to photography, I think the same applies. Although digital will always be objectively better in technical terms, analog will always have its charm and organic feel. This can be seen in companies like Fujifilm and Nikon creating digital cameras that look and feel like analog cameras. Leica on the other hand hasn’t changed its M line of cameras and kept with the original design. Fuji also created recipes to emulate film and this is also true for other companies out there.
Having said that I still think film photography offers something which to me always wins me over to the analog camp. It offers a back-to-basics approach which although simple, is complex in its own way. You are more engaged and have more involvement in the final result. In my case, this keeps me focused and improves my shooting experience as a whole, from shooting to the final image.
Going Hybrid
The good thing is that nowadays, we can benefit from analogue and digital processes. In note-taking, one can take notes in physical notebooks and then import them into digital ones. When reading, one can choose to buy a book or get it on Kindle. In the case of photography, one can shoot analogue and then digitize the negatives to end up with a digital file before printing. In this manner, one can have the best of both worlds where one medium actually helps the other.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, we live in an era where we have choice. It all depends on our preferences and we can choose what suits our tastes and needs. Sometimes we might end up with a bit of a dilemma, but at the end of the day, the choice we make is part of us being human beings and it is part of the process.
