The digital edge: three shots I never would have made on film.

Forty years ago, in December 1964, I wrote my first column on photojournalism for the International Council of Industrial Editors' Reporting magazine, going to members of an organization destined to become IABC five years later.

In that column, I observed that 35mm cameras and films were "revolutionizing photo journalism," rapidly replacing the archaic Speed Graphic "press cameras" of that era.

Four decades have now passed, and film, as a journalistic medium, is now dead and buried. Digital imaging, bringing huge advantages in control, cost and sheer creativity, has replaced it.

In my own travel photojournalism, I now make photos that never would have occurred to me if I had a film camera in hand. Digital imaging has changed the way I see, think and work as an expressive photographer, and is changing the way many organizational photographers create their images as well.

In this, my 40th anniversary IABC column, it's only fitting that I share three examples of this "digital edge" with you. I made them with three different digicams in China this past summer. I prefer these smaller digicams to the larger, heavier and more obvious digital single lens reflex cameras, which have become standard tools for working photo journalists.

A camera is only a tool. But sometimes it can make or break a picture opportunity. While standing awestruck in one of the 9,000 rooms in Beijing's 400-year-old Forbidden City, I looked up at a complex network of interlocking beams and posts that have held this building together since the Ming Dynasty. The ceiling's colors were barely visible in the dark recesses of the ceiling. Yet when I looked at the large viewing screen of my Leica Digilux 2 camera, its sensitive auto-exposure system incredibly displayed an array of lushly muted colors--golds, browns and pale blues--the palette of the 15th century. If I had been using film, I would have never made this image because those colors simply were not visible to my eyes without the help of my digicam's LCD viewing screen.

My second example features 2,000-year-old terra cotta figures that once guarded the tomb of China's first emperor in Xian. These unrestored figures appear exactly as they were unearthed 30 years ago. Once again, digital technology provided creative insight that proved essential. These figures were illuminated by strong display lighting, which created highly unnatural colors. I tried changing my Canon G5's "white balance" to improve the color, but nothing worked. However, the G5 also has a black and white setting, which created a simpler, more stylized symbolic image. The color version had looked more like broken pottery. This haunting black and white image suggests shattered human forms.

The key to my third example, a portrait of a woman preparing tubs of steamed buns for sale in a Shanghai street stall, is the camera itself. Digital technology has improved so quickly that we can now make high-quality images with cameras no larger than a pack of cigarettes. Using a tiny Canon $400 "Digital Elph," I was able to make image after image without calling attention to myself. Because she did not notice me, she concentrated on her work. Shooting again and again, I capture her as she labors in a chaotic, steamy environment, adding context that underscores her capability and positive attitude. There are more tubs to lift, more buns to make and serve and little room or time to relax. Yet, she seems to savor the challenge. This portrait does more than show us what she looks like. It tells us who she is. And without that almost invisible digicam in my hand, I doubt that I could have made this image.

Philip N. Douglis, ABC, directs The Douglis Visual Workshops, entering its 34th year of training communicators in visual literacy. Douglis, an IABC Fellow, is the most widely known consultant on editorial photography for organizations. He offers his comprehensive six-person Communicating with Pictures workshops every May and October in Oak Creek Canyon, near Sedona, Ariz. For registration information, call +1.602.493.6709, or send e-mail to [e-mail]. Send photos for possible use in this column to The Douglis Visual Workshops, 2505 E. Carol Ave., Phoenix, AZ USA 85028. You can view Douglis's multi-gallery cyberbook on expressive digital travel photography at www.pbase.com/pnd1.