Ectoplasm: Photography in the Digital Age

I really enjoyed Geoffrey Batchens' essay, I thought it was the perfect essay to conclude our discussion on photography with.  I found myself thinking about digital photography differently after I read Batchens' essay.  Because I have grown up in a digital age I take it for granted that pictures are probably altered in some way.  It seems everywhere images are photoshopped or airbrushed: magazine covers, images of nature, even personal photos can be altered to eliminate red-eye.  But I had always thought that anything being presented as photographic art would not be digitally altered, unless it was intentional.  Reading Batchens' essay made me realize the impact that digital enhancement had on photography, making people loose faith in what had previously been thought of as a medium that captured truth.

I enjoyed the way that Batchens' dealt with this seeming loss of faith.  He writes that digital photography allows human creativity to flourish because it provides a hands-on approach in all the different steps.  I thought this was a very interesting way of dealing with what many people consider a detachment from artistic principles.  Although I am not wholly convinced of his argument because I feel like digital photography, to a large extent, cheapens photographs, allowing anyone access to the photos.  Overall I appreciated Batchens' treatment of the difficult anomaly that digital photography presents to the art world.