by Mark Burch

Created on: February 17, 2009   Last Updated: February 22, 2009

Think of it as instant gratification, and who doesn't enjoy that immediate feedback? It's amazing what you can do with a digital camera today, and it's an addicting habit that grabs you by surprise. From cell phones, to point and shoot cameras, all the way up to professional level DSLR's that can take 6 to 8 photos per second, digital photography is incredible. Sometimes I find myself walking through the back yard looking for interesting textures on trees, flowers, and light coming through a window at just the right angle to capture on my Nikon camera. I compose the picture in the viewfinder and snap the picture, instantly I see the results, and recompose the shot again, click, click, click, review the results, and shoot a few more.

Digital photography has freed us from film, and the expenses related to buying and processing prints. I would have never wasted film on these experimental shots in the past, and who wants to pay ten dollars for 36 prints of tree bark and window lights? Once we buy a camera and a memory card we can take 1000s of pictures with no additional expense; we are free to experiment, and spend hours snapping away in our little worlds until we are worn out. Later we upload these treasures to our computers and edit, crop, change levels, and colors so simply it is a joy to use. Even the bad shots, the blurry shots, and the overexposed shots can be corrected to a presentable level. Some of my most cherished photographs were mistakes or lucky shots that would have been thrown out with traditional film and prints.

You see, digital photography has allowed everyone to express themselves and show the world how we see it. Photos can be blue, red, green, or whatever color you want, because it's so much more than photography now, it's become art. Once you modify your pictures in Photoshop or any other editing program, you have expanded you capabilities and the possibilities of each and every photo you take. Suddenly a boring photo has a snappy boarder, a vignette, or sepia color to match you grandparents old prints. With a little copy and pasting, you are no longer in your backyard, but on the beach in Maui and now you are holding a margarita too.

Like I said before, digital photography is so much more than photos now. My 5 year old daughter makes the most amazing photo collages with her Hanna Montana digital camera and the little software that comes with the camera. Anyone who has a camera and a computer is capable of doing things that people only dreamed about 10 years ago, and that in itself is amazing.

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