Science & Tech Quote by Fay Godwin

Godwin’s line lands with the understated pragmatism of a photographer who never mistook tools for theology. “Working in colour for ten years or so” quietly establishes authority: she’s not flirting with novelty, she’s coming off a decade of discipline. Then the pivot - “looked at digital” - reads like a measured inspection, not a conversion narrative. It’s the language of someone used to making hard choices in the field, where conditions change and the image either adapts or dies.

The key word is “possibilities.” Not “perfection,” not “revolution,” not even “freedom.” Possibilities is cooler, more British, and more honest: digital doesn’t replace seeing, it widens what can be attempted. That framing matters in Godwin’s cultural moment. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, photography was splitting into camps: the darkroom as craft religion versus digital as suspect convenience. Godwin refuses the tribalism. She treats digital as another set of constraints and openings - a new palette after years of learning how colour behaves, misbehaves, and persuades.

Subtextually, there’s a small act of self-protection here too. A respected, film-formed artist signaling she’s not being dragged into the future by trend, but stepping in on her own terms. It’s a statement about authorship: the medium shifts, the eye stays accountable. Digital’s promise, in her phrasing, isn’t automation; it’s agency - the chance to revise process, test ideas faster, and push the image without waiting for permission from chemistry, cost, or the slow gatekeeping of “proper” technique.