Light and Lens, 2nd Edition

Preface

“Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.” Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

The ascendancy of the photographic pixel as the accepted image building block has necessitated a rethinking about how beginning photography courses are structured and taught at the college level. Photography’s original analog role was to provide a fixed, recognizable, physical representation of a subject in the material world. Digital imaging dispenses with this anchor of mirroring the material world by making images that are easily changeable and likely to exist only on a screen. Thus photographic imagemaking has moved from being a set, tangible witness of outer reality ...