What is the retronym for non-digital photography?
Before they invented electric guitars, guitars were just guitars. There were no “acoustic guitars,” because the concept wasn’t necessary. When electric guitars were invented, they needed a name for the non-electric guitars, and people started calling them “acoustic guitars.”
So, before they invented digital photography, photography was just photography. Now that most photography is digital, what do you call that process where the light etches an image on the chemical coating a strip of film and it gets developed and then the colors get reversed to make it look like the thing you were photographing? Analogue photography? Surely not. Photochemical photography? Maybe, but it doesn’t sound right. Film photography? Maybe again, but it doesn’t sound right either, and there is some ambiguity in that the word “film” can also refer to a cinematic production, even if it’s digital. Does anyone know the real answer?
My wife has a friend who was a fashion photographer during the 1980s, using [insert retronym here] photography. It was a difficult job, a lot of technical issues she had to worry about regarding lighting and such. She was very good at it. But now that photography is digital, she can’t do it anymore, because it’s too easy. That is, the technical part is easy, so being a good photographer requires a different set of skills than it used to.
So, before they invented digital photography, photography was just photography. Now that most photography is digital, what do you call that process where the light etches an image on the chemical coating a strip of film and it gets developed and then the colors get reversed to make it look like the thing you were photographing? Analogue photography? Surely not. Photochemical photography? Maybe, but it doesn’t sound right. Film photography? Maybe again, but it doesn’t sound right either, and there is some ambiguity in that the word “film” can also refer to a cinematic production, even if it’s digital. Does anyone know the real answer?
My wife has a friend who was a fashion photographer during the 1980s, using [insert retronym here] photography. It was a difficult job, a lot of technical issues she had to worry about regarding lighting and such. She was very good at it. But now that photography is digital, she can’t do it anymore, because it’s too easy. That is, the technical part is easy, so being a good photographer requires a different set of skills than it used to.