Seems to be an American tendency, in the UK and Ireland at least Manual dominates the market. They are not useless skills.

Maybe its coincidental but the first thing that photographers are advised to get to grips with, once they decide to go beyond what a camera can provide automatically, is the exposure triangle. Perhaps after that comes visualisation of the intended image. Funny enough thats one of the advantages of a manual gear box being able to select an appropriate gear before its forced because of the conditions.

I can understand your perspective, but I believe some of it may come from a lack of awareness about the extent to which film photographers have altered their photos, both intentionally and unintentionally, over the past century or so. Robert Capa’s pictures of D-Day were known for their grittiness and realism, in part because a lab assistant screwed up the drying process. Ansel Adams photographed “Moonrise” in 1941 - and spent over thirty years making prints before he got one that satisfied him. The point is that film photographers, to this day, manipulate their pictures. Just in the case of B&W photographers who process their own film, there is the choice of chemicals (primarily developers), the determination of time and temperature, of stop bath and fixer procedures, not to mention the deletion or addition of wetting agents, etc. Then there is the making of the print - which paper, exposure time, burning and dodging, and then development of the print, with that above-mentioned variables, rotation and agitation, washing and addition of toners. In my case, my most popular photograph was actually a relatively small part of a 4 X 5, which was custom processed, drum scanned and then manipulated and printed on at least three different printers. So you see, all that computer language regarding the manipulation of digital images is just another dialect used by a group of people, most of whom do not understand a film photographers use of microphen, dektol or Photo-flo. We who may have had to opportunity to learn both dialects, even if not fluently, are very fortunate. And it is our responsibility to, at the very least, provide some translation and/or interpretation to both groups of photographers. And we who still practice both disciplines are indeed fortunate in our ability to understand the strength, weaknesses, differences and similarity of both.

When i first became interested in photography there was nothing but film, back then you learned quickly to do a better job of taking your shots because after turning in your film to be developed you had to pay for your bad shots as well as your good ones. That made me a lot more careful about how i composed my shots. I remember when digital cameras first came out and the comment that a professional photographer made that digital was kind of like cheating and the more i think about it the more i agree with him. I'm not a professional photographer by any means but i do understand talent. Iv'e shot film most of my life until recently when i bought a digital camera because of the increasing hassle of finding film and getting it developed. I sent my old 35mm rebel xs off to be cleaned just before hurricane Erma and when it looked like it had been lost in the mail i honestly wished it was my new rebel t6 but luckily i got my film camera back. I read a post on here about someone wanting to know how to post photos on uhh and after reading all the things about reducing and cropping and all the other computerized language i wonder if the photos will still be of the same subject that was photographed in the first place. Is anyone a real photographer anymore? I've hesitated about posting any of my photos here because of what i considered to be superior photos being posted but now i wonder how many are just computerized images. Sorry for ranting. Swamp

Back in the day cars, were standard. Driving was a learning curve, with clutch and gas pedal. In this age the new drivers don't know how to drive standard. Things evolve and its sad that us older generations had to learn the old way, and now its useless skills. When I was young, I attended RCA institute (expensive course) to learn how to fix TVs. They had tubes technology. Just when I got to be expert at knowing the technology, Transistors came out and it was all over for tube circuitry and I had to re-learn a whole new concept, which negated my education and made me have to learn a new technology. All that skill no longer needed. Today it seems like new things come out every yr or so. What is current is out dated quickly.

Seems to be an American tendency, in the UK and Ireland at least Manual dominates the market. They are not useless skills.

Maybe its coincidental but the first thing that photographers are advised to get to grips with, once they decide to go beyond what a camera can provide automatically, is the exposure triangle. Perhaps after that comes visualisation of the intended image. Funny enough thats one of the advantages of a manual gear box being able to select an appropriate gear before its forced because of the conditions.