RIT Closes Wet Lab, Sends Film to Praus

[Frank Petronio]

So RIT is dismantling it's film darkrooms and will be sending film to Edgar Praus's lab, http://www.4photolab.com. Edgar will be stepping up his hours and rising to the occassion I am sure.

Just a plug for Praus and a semi-sad observation that even RIT is moving further away from film. But the RIT students I know all want to shoot 4x5, they think it is cool that a $3 pc of film captures at least as much if not more than the big digital backs they have to fight over to use.

See my later post with the following note from Edgar Praus (I goofed bad): ""here it is from Edgar, "unfortunately, you give some information that was not quite correct. the rit lab is ONLY closing for the summer in order to move their equipment, not forever which is the impression you gave.""

[Kirk Gittings]

So this is not an "in house" lab they are closing, but the student film procesing darkrooms? That is unfortunate and perhaps short sided. Not that I have anything against Praus. I use them myself at times.

At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I teach, they are remodeling the traditional darkrooms this summer to devote more space to digital. I think they are preserving film developing but cuttiing back the space.

Have they also done away with things like stone lithography in favor of digital printmaking?

[Patrik Roseen]

Frank, It is an unfortunate trend I agree...hopefully the ones left will be able to survive although price for services will go up (as already noticed in Sweden).

[paulr]

I've head of pressure at colleges to shut down darkrooms (administrators seem to think of them as resource hogs, for whatever reason). But I'm surprised RIT of all places would be so quick to do it.

[Bill_1856]

Jeez. Next thing you know they'll be emptying the Mercury containers from their Deguerreotype classes.

[Walter Calahan]

I hired a student of a college communications school to assist me on a magazine shoot last year. This student interned at one of the nation's premier newspapers.

The magazine has a specific look, so always asks for medium format or large color negative shot on their assignments.

So there I was teaching the assistant how to load film in my cameras. He had never used film in his life.

[Ken Lee]

Follow the money.

[Ted Harris]

No surprise here. About a year ago when I was looking for a photochemist to review some material for View Camera the first thing I did was check with the Technical Department at RIT. The Department Chair told me (as direct a quote as I can come up with ater this period of time), "We don't have any photochemists on the faculty anymore, we use people from Kodak as adjuncts when we need them. We have gone digital."

[Gordon Moat]

I thought the RIT program was more technically oriented, rather than a BFA or MFA approach? Anyway, the college I attended, San Diego State University, is down to one darkroom, having closed the beginning photography one. They use to start out with a class only using B/W, and with students doing their own processing and printing. As of two years ago, the change was shooting the first two assignments in B/W on their D-SLRs, then moving to colour imaging, and everything processed on a computer.

Universities are in business to make money. They are more likely to attract students by offering state of the art computer labs, than offering darkrooms. The reality of art programs is that they are moving more towards computer oriented studies. Imagine if painting students were told to get rid of their oil paints, and Turpenoid, and just use computers and WACOM tablets . . . hopefully it does not come to that.


Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[tim atherton]

I guess I'm a little surprised any one's actually surprised by this.

The reality is - photography is digital