A quick search in Google or one of the other search engines can easily yield dozens of images from everyday life, snapped on camera phones, small pocket-sized digital cameras, or high-end digital SLR’s. In many cases, camera phone images are so blurry as to be of little value, but they abound in the wide world of the Internet, and as small portable imagery devices get into more and more hands, the sheer volume of electronic images just continues to increase.
Some people ask the question of whether the digital photography revolution is necessarily a good thing. It is easier, faster and cheaper than ever before to capture memorable moments for later viewing. Because of this, digital photos often feel more real than traditional film-based images, as dozens or hundreds of images can be snapped continuously at no cost without interrupting the flow of a moment in order to have participants re-create it for a picture.
Because of this essential freedom to review, arrange, and remove unwanted images, we are far more generous with our shutters than was generally the case with more expensive film-based methods of image capture. Because of inexpensive storage however,...