Are Computers Killing Photography?

By:  Curtis Brewster

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Computers are starting to play a huge role in the way we see photographs. We can now change what we see to make the viewer not know what is real and what is fake in a photo, but is it right to manipulate photography like that? Should we air brush our super models until there is not one flaw on their entire body? Should we never again show landscapes as they truly are? These are questions that have risen in the past few years over the computer’s influence on photography.

Some photographers believe computer involvement in photos will take away from what they believe is their jobs. With a computer you can take an average looking photo and turn it into an amazing one. The skill of photography will be taken away. Others believe it is only an added plus to the art of photography. It will give the photographers the opportunity to fix and enhance their photos. The digital image has almost made the darkroom obsolete.

Here is the current debate. All the techniques used in the darkroom are now the basic tools of a digital image program on computers. Now people can take photos with digital cameras and send them directly to the computer and use different programs like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Painter to enhance them. Can it be that the darkroom was for yesterday’s world of photography? Is the computer for today’s world of photographs and digital images? Since most of us take photograps and we see photographs almost daily, we are all somehow part of this debate.