Savageduck
Somehow I think you guys have been using the wrong analogies for a photo NG. Forget about the racecar driver & architect, how about the owner of any digital camera, compact, or DSLR? Do they need to have a knowledge of how to operate a computer to shoot photographs with their digital camera?

nospam
no they do not, nor did film users need to know how to process their own film.

PeterN
Is it your claim that in the film days, a good photo artist did not have to understand the how and why of film. He did not have to understand masking with film, the effect of various chemicals, and light sources on things such as contrast, and grain?

Savageduck
Did you read "GOOD" anywhere to qualify "film users"?

The great unwashed mass of photographers using film, shooting with Brownies, Kodak folders, & Argus C3s would even know what hypo was let alone being familiar with the smells of the darkroom. They probably never had the space for a darkroom, and hadn't even considered learning how to develop and print when there was a guy who could do it for them.

There was also a time when press photographers shooting 35mm, would just drop courier, or mail undeveloped exposed film to the agency, or press room for the photo editor to deal with. As a matter of fact, that is what happened to Robert Capa's 11 D-Day shots for Life. They got screwed up by the technician back in London. There is a rumor/myth that technician, was soon to be a famous war photographer in his own right, Larry Burrows. < http://www.skylighters.org/photos/robertcapa.html >