Quote:
Originally Posted by Via Chicago
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As long as I can continue using darkroom, I have no intention to switch to digital. I approach the whole thing more as a craft and a hands on experience...I love the physicality of using and developing film. You can't beat the texture and tonal range of good fiber-based paper. The stench of the chemicals, the glow of the safe light, the comforting gurgle of the print washer at the end of the day...its visceral.
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I'll second that about the darkroom experience. I was eleven years old when I first watched my aunt make a print in her then-new basement darkroom. When I saw the image emerge in the developer tray, my immediate, soul-stirring response was, "Wow! I gotta do that!" It's like conjuring up magic.
I still have a closet full of film cameras, from a 1937 Leica up to Medium Format and a Speed Graphic, and I could go into my darkroom right after breakfast, intending to make a couple of prints, and emerge to find that it was dark out and realize that I hadn't eaten or gone to the bathroom in about twelve hours.
Time (now age 70) and the arthritis that I inherited from my parents have served to dampen my enthusiasm for standing at an enlarger and a sink full of trays full of chemicals in a damp and sometimes chilly place, and a DSLR and Photoshop have enabled me to continue enjoying my lifelong passion, admittedly now more focused on product than on process.
In my own processing I was always very careful to use fresh chemicals, follow time-and-temperature specs closely, and take care to avoid dust or water spots. On a few occasions I was lazy or pinched for time, and sent out b&w for processing, and on too many of those occasions the film came back dirty or spotted or improperly processed. A good film scanner and Photoshop have given me the ability to rescue some negatives and transparencies that, from processing errors or age, would have been exceedingly difficult to print using traditional wet processes.
The film scanner and Photoshop have allowed me to print my old negatives and transparencies the way I want, too. Too often, even expensive custom labs gave me prints that weren't sharp or clear or brilliant, and now at much less cost I can have full control over the process and work toward prints that look like the viewfinder image I recall. Although I've had to adjust my approach to photography, digital technology allows me to continue to enjoy it.
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