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As an educator in a commercial photography program at Sheridan Institute of Technology (I hope nobody objects if I do a little shameless promotion) the panorama of digital versus analog is different and simpler. I have been teaching digital imaging since 1993 and, along with my colleagues, I have been telling my academic superiors that in the field of commercial photography the game has been won by digital, and that our program needs to make the transition quickly. I have argued that while we can continue teaching image editing and manipulation as we have since 1991, we need to also make a serious commitment to digital capture, otherwise we will not be preparing our students for work in commercial studios.

I have made this argument conscious of the fact that a large number of Toronto area studios are now using a completely digital workflow. Fortunately the commitment was made 2 years ago, and now we are rapidly making changes in our curriculum and acquiring the technology. At the moment we offer our 160 students the use of 60 Canon D60 and 10D DSLR cameras as well as 16 Phase One/Mamiya 645/Mac PowerBook kits, in addition to our new Mac G5 image-editing lab. Within Sheridan I have steadily promoted the enlarged expressive potential of digital photography without any reservations while at the same time listening with a sympathetic ear to the complaints and doubts of fellow teachers who remain unconvinced, who do not want to learn something new, and who need to be brought into the digital age kicking and screaming. My role has been to lead by example and to use gentle persuasion in order to help fellow educators in this transition.