Photo-phylosophizing

I had an odd reaction to one of my own photographs today and that started me pondering.  Last week I bought some new software (Alien Skin Exposure 4) that allows you to emulate a huge number of different film types, plus some darkroom effects like brushed on emulsions, or the edge effects you could achieve by filing down the slot of the negative carrier before printing your picture.  Imagine my squeal of delight as I ran through all the options - B&W, color, vintage films, and even lo-fi options such as light leak.  I pounced on something I'd never gotten to experience in the darkroom - color infrared.  Oh the crazy colors and alien feel given to landscapes!  So I grabbed a photo I took recently of a clematis bloom with some green foliage in the background, applied the Kodak Ektachrome EIR film option, and voila - strange but interesting. 

So my first reaction was oooh pretty!  Then my second reaction was something along the lines of guilt or apprehension.  Even though I've been using Photoshop since version 3, I still have the inate, irrational feeling that I'm cheating when I do something beyond a levels adjustment and a little boost in the saturation department on a photograph.  Just to be clear, I do not feel this sensation when I'm making one of my huge layered digital creations.  That's an entirely different beast to my mind.  

In the beginning, there was film, a photo safe light, and a multitude of chemicals and it was good.  Yes, you got black spots on your clothes and came home reeking of a faint sulphur smell, but it was fulfilling.  When the digital photography revolution began in the 90s, it was fun to sneer at the poor quality of the cameras and crazy idea that you could replicate your darkroom with software.  But as the technology advanced, it became impossible to ignore the lure, ease, and creativity the digital world offered.  Digital photography did not come dressed in red spandex with horns.  It is that kind of thinking that is still in the back of my head though. 

Perhaps I've let nostaglia subconscioiusly rein in my potential for creativity.  I vow to stop feeling guilty for having an easier way to do something that used to be so hard and to embrace the happy accidents that happen when I'm doing something in Photoshop that I couldn't have done in the darkroom. 

I'm glad that's decided...