Thanks Martin.
Photography is an art if you want it to be, and art is fraught with opinion in any field. It is also a means of keeping records, and those records may not be arty, but can be just as valuable to memory, and hold more to the photographer than may appear to others. As such the value of any image is to the beholder and those privy to the circumstances of the event that lead to it being taken.
One of many photo mentors from my past said something once I've never forgotten: 'If an image is effective enough for you to place it in a frame and put it on your wall, then it's a good picture'
I will say though that photography to me is about a resulting image, and whilst getting it right in the camera is important, it's only a part of generating a picture that's complete. To some this might mean using a particular film and developing process that gives a certain feel, coupled with more choices in selective framing, paper contrast choice and also it's development when enlarging onto paper prints. In digital terms the same applies, but now we have electronic controls to configure what's captured, and more electronic controls to edit the image, and indeed in printing with digital printers. So, with some fiddling what might be considered lesser images can be be made more special, it just takes the eye to see the picture within the picture sometimes.
A lot of folk frown on digital as being less noble that film, but here's the facts: There is no mass produced digital camera on earth that can meet the resolution of even a basic large format film camera. The issue is what you intend to do with the image, I reckon my limit from a digital is a 20x30 print, but 99% of it is for viewing on computers in which case my cameras exceed the resolution of anything I'm viewing it on, so it's good enough as any resolution benefit is rarely used, or even visible.
