The aim of this article is to understand how students at schools for photojournalism and documentary photography understand photography's relation to reality. Theoretical discussions on the digitalisation of photography and related technological developments over the last 30 years have often highlighted that the relationship of photography to reality has fundamentally changed and with it the role of the photographer. To investigate this, this study uses focus group interviews, conducted between 2018 and 2020, with young adults ('digital natives') at schools for photojournalism and documentary photography from two countries - Russia and Sweden - with very different historical traditions of practising photography. Photo schools are interesting as sites because they may provide a freer space to discuss and challenge conventions around how to practice photography, outside of professional constrains. However, when the students reflect upon photography, technology, and the role of the photographer, it is not centred around the digital photograph. Understood as a remediation process, the photo students invest the 'new' medium (the digital photograph) with certain assumed qualities of the 'old' one (analogue photograph). The dominant understanding of photography is rooted in the history of photography and, despite the two distinct national contexts, has more similarities than differences.