at a crossroad

[Robert Skeoch]

I ended up going the darkroom route. I just find it more enjoyable and spend too much time behind the computer already.
Plus who wants to be just another guy printing digital prints.
-Rob Skeoch

[Bill Burk]

There are probably only a handful of people in the world, that can do in the darkroom what you could do with photoshop/lightroom after a year or two of practice.

Or put another way, after a year or two of practice in the darkroom... You could be one of the handful of people who can do in the darkroom what can be done with lightroom... I think the biggest problem for the lightroom user is knowing what the print should look like. So I'll create some proofs in the darkroom, and if anyone can make prints similar to or surpassing mine, I'll be happy for them.

[Maris Rusis]

Or put another way, after a year or two of practice in the darkroom... You could be one of the handful of people who can do in the darkroom what can be done with lightroom... I think the biggest problem for the lightroom user is knowing what the print should look like. So I'll create some proofs in the darkroom, and if anyone can make prints similar to or surpassing mine, I'll be happy for them.

Too true. An electronic picture file has no native appearance. It could look like anything depending on how it is recalculated and what display or mark-making "engine" is used to make it visible. In practice most electronic files are output so they look like some really good picture the lightroom user saw and remembered; usually a fine photograph...or so it seems!

[Jac@stafford.net]

There is a quality of the process of making an image through film and chemistry and enlarging - for lack of a better word(s) I call it Latency which stresses our attention to precise intention, not luck.

Welcome

[ROL]

I,m just wondering wether others have been in this situation and which way they went and what ultimately influenced there decision?

I was exactly at the place, and it was very lonely there, in the early Century when I was faced with building my latest DR. At that time, it was becoming undeniably clear that digital was the forward thinking way to go. But, I had to ask myself, (Self, said I) what exactly are you good at and what do you enjoy? I hadn't had much experience with professional D printing, so… the obvious choice. Mark(s) said it perfectly.

Fast forward though the last decade, and I still have reservations. There are two ways to look at it. Either you are keeping the candle burning and becoming ever more "rare" – whether that translates into "worth", as my wife (Pollyanna) believes, is another matter, or you will become increasingly marginalized, a stubborn Luddite of no value to any of a new generation of appreciators of photography, as I believe. Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer.