I am sorry to see that what I have said has created such a bitter argument over semantics. I feel that the actual discussion I was trying to start, which had more to do with Humanity in the arts and the way computers change the way we interact with the world, has been completely lost so that people could argue about what the meaning of words are and what categories to place things instead.
We will all have our opinions on where to draw the line between digital and traditional photography, but these opinions don't really matter. Maybe Paul is right and "we're dealing with a continuum and not with two different universes." but that does not mean that those who love silver-gelatin photography should not be distressed and upset that it is being pushed out of the forefront and referred to as "traditional" photography.
Sure this has happened many times in the history of photography, and I am sure that those who saw the Daguerreotype fall out of fashion were greatly saddened by this and had much to say. But were they wrong for feeling such a way? Of course not, with the loss of the daguerrotype a certain aesthetic was lost, and much in the same way our aesthetic is being lost. Although some may accuse us of whining and not simply following suit with the change in times, is it not right for us, the people who are the closest to the processes, to be saddened and offended?
As traditional photography continues to shrink and students begin to move straight to digital without ever even thinking about film, or what temperature their chemicals are at, or shuffling through the pages of Kodak Technical Publications something will be lost. For society as a whole and much of the art world this may not be that important. But for those of us who love it we see something very dear to us being lost and we are going to react like any human does when they see the rest of the world forget about it and move on.
Digital will bring something new to the table and will have plenty of advantages. Whether or not there is something intrinsically wrong with digital photography is not what this is all about, what it is about is what traditional photography has meant to the people who practice it and having to see society say "well, thats swell and all but I still prefer digital."
I hope in the end we can all just agree that Art can be created using any medium as long as it is done with skill and invokes a response from the viewer that has some meaning. What you call the process doesn't matter. All that matters is what you learn using that process and what result it has on the work. I'm just sad that one that has such deep meaning for me has been beat back to the point where the companies who once supported us are now struggling to make a profit on the supplies we require. I am not mad at the companies, or at the digital photographers, or anyone for that matter. Just sad to see my love struggling to survive.
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