Digital is just another tool to add to our tool box. It's progress. We all have more options now, and that is good. Now on to the important questions about education and the future...
My original degree is a BS in physics 10 years ago. When I was studying physics this topic was a roaring debate; fundamentals or career training. In the working world it might be considered useless, but earning that degree trained me with many skills that have allowed me to be employed in a wide range of fields from IT to teaching, to software etc. Physics trained me to be rational and disciplined. It allowed me to maintain opposing lines of thought; gave me a good knowledge of math and a good sense of how the physical world works. I also learned how to find tools or develop them when they don't exist, and use them to achieve an end result. This is what a fundamental education offers and should be about.
Training in the arts should focus on this sort of fundamental education. While studying physics the professor/adminstrators I talked to said that funding was the new pressure. Academia had been a safe haven (in physics during the cold war, funding was unlimited), but now schools had to market to students because that is how they assured funding. And when they had to please students, who by the very definition don't know what they are supposed to learn, the schools ended up in a bad situation. They lost control of deciding what was important to teach and therefore to know. Academia went from a leader in imparting knowledge, ideally above the nonsense of trends and speculation, to yet another institution under market forces. The result was that the percentage of US educated PhD students in Physics dropped to almost nothing, with Eastern European students filling most of the slots. Of course major universities were somewhat immune because their prestige guaranteed them the money they needed to set the terms of their educational systems.
Provided I am on the left bay on the left coast, but the educated people I meet and talk to seem to recognize the difference and are concerned by this lack of emphasis on fundamental education at all levels of school. But those same people are often driven to act against this realization. The issue runs deep, all the way to the core of the country if you ask me, and plays itself out in all of our institutions. We are in a struggle against some large pressures and problems. Can we continue to build on our past and prosper with the freedom and knowhow to do great new things, or are we destined to fade away into a winner take all business first mentality. Digital v. film; slow and thoughtful v. deadlines and efficiency; creativity v. trend conformity; its all part of the same struggle.
So to steer back to photo; I am now in a photography program at a state university, and I was in a contemporary photography class last week when this topic came up. The school was deciding how to redesign its curriculum to keep up with the digital times. Our teacher, who is on the board of directors in the department was reminded after a discussion with the class that the fundamental role of a university is to give students a fundamental education not train them for a job. The class unanimously made the case for keeping wet darkroom work at the beginning and all levels. We all agreed that we were better off in our creative endeavors for having digital tools, but that the main reason we were sitting in that class was because of learning wet film techniques. We knew that darkroom experience is what gave us the knowledge to understand photography at a deeper level.
Unfortunately the department is cutting wet darkroom work out of all beginning classes. But in their defense they are seeming to take on the attitude that teaching students how to make an image is separate task than teaching students how to make a photograph. Hopefully they maintain booth of those goals in the new curriculum.
So here's my 2 cents worth of suggestions:
If you have a darkroom, bring people into it and show them how it works and give them time to work in it. The more adults and young people who experience the creative process first hand, the more advocates you can create. It may be subversive to tell a teenager, or their parents, that their high school, or any school, can't give them a nurturing creative education they need, but if you can foster the proper growth of a creative mind then it is worth it. My aunt, an artist, along with the rest of my family did so for me after my unsuccessful stint in physics, which is a big reason why I am back in school in photography.
Document how you work and what you learn. Write letters and notes about your experiences, and add the language of your creations to the dialogue. Actually picking up a pencil and moving it on paper with your hand goes a long way toward preserving your thoughts. The more complete and diverse pictures of the photographic art and craft we can preserve and pass on, the more likely it will survive. People become interested because of personal connections, so make your projects personal as well as logical. (hand written contact sheet postcards and birthday cards etc.) Show the world what your process has to offer not just tell them.
The first place I try to evoke change in society is with myself.
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Originally Posted by roteague
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