Traditional Darkroom, A Dying Art?

[Ken Lee]

"I work in the commercial photography field, and I see the change".


Me and clouds, taken by a commercial photographer, using a 16 MP Canon EOS-D1.


My photo: same scene, made with a 50+ year old Kodak View 2A 5x7.
I'm an amateur.

[David Luttmann]

What's the point Ken? One's a flash shot exposed for close distance....the other is metered for the clouds. Are you comparing based on this?

[Mark Sawyer]

"Here's another idea: Show a kid how B&W prints are made..."

As a high school photo teacher I get to rediscover the magic of the darkroom every year though their eyes. I'd like to do more digital, but with an equipment budget in the $200-300 range for the year, we mostly stick to the darkroom since it's already there. Most kids seem to like it that way...

[Ken Lee]

I may be wrong, but it seems that both images reveal a value of around Zone II in the tree, but I prefer the extended range that we get with more traditional methods.

What we call progress, is sometimes its opposite.

What is good for commerce, is not always good for the arts.

In our enthusiasm for speed and convenience, we often lose depth and content.

[Scott Fleming]

Ellis' post made me think of something. I once despised the thought of putting my MF and LF images on a monitor. I mean in the sense of web use. It just seemed silly. All that information and detail reduced to 72ppi and a measly 8 x 10 inches or less. Then I got a mac and a 23" apple display. Whoa! My best Lightjet prints do not look as luminous and vibrant as the slideshow I have as my wallpaper on the Mac.

Might there be a day when one would walk into a gallery and every photograph would be displayed on it's own large LCD or Plasma screen ... or the future equivalent. Or perhaps technology will even allow such display in our own homes. What about an entire wall (name your dimensions) that might display any photograph of any resolution and or magnification?

It will happen.

[David Luttmann]

Ken,

There is detail in the tree in the digital shot, and none in the film. This seems to indicate a difference of exposure of approx 1 to 1.5 stops. Of course, it's hard to tell completely from the screen shots.

[Ken Lee]

It is hard to tell. On my LCD monitor - an "improvement" over CRT - it depends on the angle of view. ;-)

Maybe that sums it all up: what represents progress from one perspective, may be a regression from another.

I just hope that our creative options stay open.

[David Luttmann]

Well said Ken...

[Mark Sawyer]

"Might there be a day when one would walk into a gallery and every photograph would be displayed on it's own large LCD or Plasma screen ... or the future equivalent. Or perhaps technology will even allow such display in our own homes. What about an entire wall (name your dimensions) that might display any photograph of any resolution and or magnification?"

Perhaps someday beyond that, we can even get the pictures on the screen to move! And perhaps we can add sound! And maybe even commercials! But no way will we ever get one in every home...

[Frank Bagbey]

BILL, what a FLAMER you are. Do you really consider your darkroom work a waste of time in terms of quality? Is it that bad? Now go tape your black and white fiberbase print and your inkjet next to each other on the referigerator door for a few years and report back in 2007.
In the meantime watch all the fiberbase prints sell for great money and watch the inkjet stuff be explained and explained and bring in little money.