They say in hiking the journey is the destination. For the hiker, it is indeed more important to walk a beautiful, interesting or challenging path than to reach a specific destination. For some photographers, too, the path seems to be more important than the result, i.e. the finished picture. If everyone chooses the digital way, then one chooses the analog way. If everyone wants to make their (photography) lives easier, one chooses the difficult route.

The main thing is that the road is rocky

Many photographers think that a photo has a higher value if it was taken with great effort. Not simply just “snapped”, but hanging on the cliff with one arm and pressing the shutter release button with the little toe on the left foot: that’s the guarantee for top photos. Or it has to be the chemically produced image on silver film and photographic paper for it to have any real value – something that has become very popular again. Among nature photographers, it seems to be important to have taken the photos in arctic cold and standing up to your belly in a torrent. And then, of course, there are those photographers for whom a picture is only worth looking at if it was taken with the right camera.

There’s no way that a photo is simply a good photo. It must have been taken in the right way, otherwise it is worthless.

A photo is a photo is a photo

It’s just too bad that you can actually not see that the photo was taken while one was hanging on the cliff with one arm. Or standing up to the belly in the stream. Or with a Leica (or Hasselblad, Nikon, Canon, Sony… feel free to add other brands). And frankly, why should the viewer care?

When I look at photos, I’m interested in the image itself. Does it speak to me on any level or does it leave me cold? Does the image tell a story? Does it show me something of the world that I may not know yet? Or maybe it’s just beautiful and appealing? These are the things that interest me. I doesn’t matter to me whether it was shot digitally or on film. I couldn’t care less whether the photographer had to walk for hours through the wilderness or took the shot from the side of the road. I also couldn’t care less whether the photo was taken with a DSLR camera, a cell phone or God knows what. In fact, I don’t even care about the aperture and exposure time of a photo.

The result counts

Those who like to use silver film and hydroquinone should do so. Those who like to edit their pictures on the computer should do that. Those who like to drag heavy equipment over the mountains and stand up to their bellies in water should do that, too. But no one should believe that a good picture will come out just because you take the “correct” path.

What counts for me is always the image itself. I don’t care what one had to do (or not do) or which way one had to take to get there. But – if I do care about the way, I put on my hiking boots and leave the camera at home!

As always I’m looking forward to your comments.