This quote from Henri Cartier-Bresson captures aspects of the film-versus-digital argument. By modern standards, many of the great photographs from the film era are grainy, unsharp, and lacking in extreme resolution. But have you ever looked at a photograph by Cartier-Bresson or Robert Frank and placed your nose against it to examine its critical sharpness? I doubt it. You take in the overall look and meaning of the image viscerally, emotionally, and thoughtfully. Many film photographs are simply softer than their digital counterparts. Lenses were not as good, darkroom technology had its flaws, many shots were handheld with slower films, and, as a rule, photographers were concerned with the subject and not obsessing over cameras and lenses.

Inexactitude and imperfection are often intentional components in art, mirroring the human condition. Many digital photographs can feel clinical and sterile, over-sharpened and falsely perfect. In the hands of inexperienced and insensitive practitioners, they feel synthetic, like specimens of too much cosmetic surgery, and strike the audience with a blow to the eyes without penetration into the psyche of the viewer. High impact imagery prevails in the popular photography aesthetic with attempts to “strike” the viewer with a strong—one could even say overdone—look and feel. For sophisticated viewers, these images come off as hammering to the senses, much like a constant diet of heavy metal music.

Can we instill in a photograph the aim of presence or the representation of raw humanity, full of contradictory imperfection? The messy spontaneity and deep ambiguity of real life cannot be rendered in faultless resolution. Our eyes even see in a particular fashion, sharp in the central vision of the macula and blurring out as the retinal image moves to the edges of the visual field. This is why, I believe, some photographers are drawn to plastic, toy cameras like the Holga and Diana and soft-focus lenses or use long exposures and slow shutter speeds to render motion and not freeze it. During the film era, many photographers sought intentional grainy results and an impressionistic rendering of the subject. These kinds of imperfect and unsharp renderings often suffuse the subject with light and atmosphere, much like the way we actually see the world.

In the hands of skilled practitioners, sharpness does have its definite place in the pantheon of photography. The tonal precision and sharp acutance of, say, Ansel Adam’s landscapes or Andreas Gursky’s zeitgeist imagery can be awe inspiring. Or, it’s hard to image a soft, blurry rendering of Edward Weston’s modernist shells and vegetables. Many contemporary photographs of the land depend on verisimilitude and an intensification of the subject, rendering every detail as worthy of consideration. However, precision forms one, but only one, expressive tool in the hands of photographers.

When making images, pay attention to the quality of lenses and the digital editing process. Contemporary lenses can be blazingly sharp and photographers devise methods in software to accentuate that sharpness even further. Digital cameras in JPG mode and scanners often have automatic sharpness built in. Indeed, some popular high-quality film scanners require the sharpness to be turned down to a negative value, like minus thirty, merely to turn off the automatic sharpening. Likewise, images made with an extremely sharp lens require minimal sharpening in software, while photographs made with moderate-quality “kit” lenses, those that are sold with the camera, require more aggressive sharpening. In my experience, over-sharpening is a much greater danger than under-sharpening. With sharpening, often, less is more.

Over-sharpened images look “crunchy” and brittle; they often lack nuance and sensuous gradation. A sure sign of digital over-sharpening is when you see whitish halos around the edges of things in the photograph. Look at photographs in magazines and on websites to see how prevalent the over-sharpened look has become. Learn about and pay attention to sharpness. There are numerous effective methods to enhance sharpness without killing the sensuousness, subtlety, and nuance of the image.

I think that anyone seeking to make a career in photography or to pursue it with a degree of seriousness should have the experience of making images with film. Both film and digital images have their own strengths and unique qualities. My argument has always been to embrace both film and digital technologies. Film has a natural kind of depth, presence, and dimensionality of color and detail. Digital technology offers ease of use, economy, and, when using RAW format, a dynamic range of brightness that approaches and can exceed many films. But they feel different. Use what works for your intent and your desired look but learn the processes well. Skilled photographers can work in both digital and film without the viewer knowing the difference.

Most photographers use, more or less, the same camera today: a handheld digital SLR or mirrorless camera with rectangular proportions, sharp lenses, and a sensitive sensor. Study photographs made with film (square and rectangular format), view cameras, digital technology, sharp lenses, toy cameras, and soft-focus lenses. Too much control can be overrated. Some photographs live within a space of intentional imperfection. Look, for example, at the resonating mystery of suffused light and exquisite darkness in Sally Mann’s southern landscapes made with an old 8×10 view camera, replete with light leaks and employing soft-focus, damaged lenses. In these images, serendipity rules.

Chance is part of every artist’s methodology, whether intentionally embraced or not. Sally Mann says of her images, “I’m so worried that I’m going to perfect [my] technique someday. I have to say it’s unfortunate how many of my pictures do depend upon some technical error.”