I was directed to a short film on the CNN website today called “Film: Not Dead Yet”.

Among working photographers that should come as no surprise. But I am intrigued as to how often I am stopped by people I encounter in my work who enquire whether I am shooting on film or digitally. Clearly there is an expectation among layfolk that if you are a “professional” photographer, you must being doing something that sets you apart from the hoi palloi.

This is a slightly curious film, certainly in so far as the manner of its narration (it gives the impression of being a computerised archivist in a library of the future), but with contributions from six proponents of doing it the old fashioned way, including no less a man than Elliott Erwitt, it achieves its effect of painting analogue practice as the “true” photography. There are many that no doubt will take issue with that idea, and Erwitt to his credit tempers any such notion with what I regard as an absolute truth that to be a successful photographer you have first and foremost to be curious.

Personally, I regard all these arguments as being so much hot air and a distraction from the world we should be taking an interest in. Analogue or digital, they are all just tools. It is the subject which interests me most.