“Will It Come Out?”

Before the vast popularity of digital photography, the loneliest people in the world were probably photographers in darkrooms waiting to see if their negatives turned out the way they had hoped. This is true for photographers still working with film, and an equivalent problem exists when digital photographers compare the previews they see in their cameras to the results they get when they attempt to make a fine print from the image file. Smartphone photography is an exciting genre unto itself, but for many kinds of professional or creative work, automatic point-and-shoot cameras are too limited. Digital photographers often think that they are immune to this problem because they can instantly see a “preview” of their images. The balance between structure and content in art is an important measure of mature work. Camera manufacturers give the impression that taking good pictures can be simple and automatic.