Abstract

Can digital pictures qualify as photographs? The commonsensical answer is that they can. We are happy to call a picture of a scene made with a digital camera a photograph. According to William Mitchell, however, we are wrong to do so. Pictures made with digital cameras would not qualify as photographs, because they lack a certain realism essential to classical, i.e. film-based, photography. In the following, I first present two ways in which film-based photographs are realistic . Next, I discuss Mitchell’s position that pictures made with digital cameras are not realistic and, consequently, not truly photographic . Finally, I argue – against Mitchell – that pictures made with digital cameras are realistic and, thus, do qualify as photographs