Can digital photography be called photography?

Weird question, right? A while ago, I had this conversation/argument with a film photographer that claimed that only film photography is actually photography.

He claimed that digital cannot be called photography, because it was not meant to be. It’s an interesting claim, albeit not a valid one. At least in my (and many others) opinion.

The word photography consists of two Greek words - photo, which is “light” - and graph, which is “draw”. So, photography is basically “painting with light”. No one said it has to be film. Especially taking into account the fact that photography did not start with film, but with plates.

It started with silver plates, with the process called héliographie, later continued to daguerreotype, and so on and so forth, and sometimes the film was invented. So, when I hear “only film photography is photography”, I use the history knowledge to say “no, this is wrong. Any photography is photography”.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments

All photos taken with Fujifilm x100v