My daughter graduates from high school this week. Yesterday, she informed me that the Paradise Valley (Arizona) school district is closing all the wetlabs the end of this semester. They are firing or relocating the teacher to somewhere else. This particular instructor has been a major influence on many local photographers for decades and it really is a shame.
The school board has informed the students and instructor that traditional photographer is simply dead and that digital photography is the future. My daughter is an avid film shooter and much prefers it to digital (although she shoots digital like crazy like many teenagers).
If the next generation does not learn to use and love film, it will most certainly suffer a quick death. Film will be manufactured by a few boutique company's and will cost an absolute fortune. Kind of like what is happening with the cost of polaroid 55.
I am not opposed to shooting digital and often use it. I just would hate to see this beautiful method of image capture and reproduction disappear.
Is there anything that we can do at the local level to help keep this alive for the next generation?
Not all film programs are dying. Ours (a Central Florida Community College) is alive and well, and the CC down the road a bit is building a brand new building with an expanded photography gallery to boot. They fill every class every semester in the first weeks of registration and offer quite a few large format classes as well as basic photography.
Cost has much to do with this type of thing in an academic setting, as does politics, which is an integral part of academia sadly. I weep more for an education system that has no interest in inspiring creativity in the young rather than for film, for film will be around much longer than the opportunity to get a quality education...
My community college's traditional darkroom classes are also full every semester. That's at the same time as the school is expanding its digital offerings. I have heard anectdotal evidence that some schools have closed and then reopened wet darkroom labs due to demand from students.
I agree with Randy. I teach photography at the community college in the county where I live. In our Graphic Arts program we have 8 still photography courses; only 2 are digital and the rest are film. We also have 2 video classes. And, this semester, we just instituted a degree program in photography. Some administrations can see past the end of their noses; some cannot.
My school's b&w darkroom sees heavy use every quarter, while the digital imaging studio and color darkrooms are comparatively empty about 2/3rds of the year.
The facilities are quite absurdly nice for a state school with an enrollment of 5k (40 inch RA-4 machine, subsidized-for-students epson 7800 and 9800, photo studios and a wing-lynch that still runs C-41 and even E-6, for up to 8x10" film)... but we're so far under capacity that it's kind of embarassing.
Film isn't going anywhere, not for a good while. I still make lith masks with a stat camera.
Well that's just crap, George. Won't help a bit, but I just emailed them letting them no my thoughts on the matter. I think they should listen to AZ Hwys on just how dead film is.
A few weeks ago Catholic University in DC dismantled their darkrooms... they set their stuff out and let anyone who was interested snarf it up, and anything that went unclaimed was destined for the trash.
I got there a bit late, but I managed to "rescue" a Honeywell 35mm color enlarger, an Omega D2 enlarger (which didn't have an enlarger lens, but apparently the person who snagged the lens didn't realize it was for the enlarger, so I may be able to get that also ), and some safelights and such.
It's a bummer that they closed down their darkroom, but at least now I have some motivation to get on with setting up one of my own
This is similar to symphonic music where arts funding continues to be cut. Orchestras are suffering with aging audiences as well. Generally if someone isnt exposed to art before the end of high school, they most likely will not pick it up later.
Im glad to hear that community colleges continue to support film, but I suspect this has to do with costs. Not many schools have the funds to provide MF digital backs, high end digital slr's or scanning backs for the cc students. The story may change when costs for pro level digital hardware decline to the price of a computer.
Its sad that photography is suffering some of the similar effects that the music industry is dealing with. Its ironic that the ease of digital distribution is hurting the producers of that which is being distributed.
Oil paint has not been replaced by either acrylic or alkyd based paints. But of course all these mediums are analog.
I prefer to think of image capture mediums as a choice similar to painting with oil or synthetic paints.
The truth be told, my eos 1ds doesnt get nearly as much use as it used to. The prints look plain flat when compared to film images. Of course on the screen, digital looks great.
If that school board is anything like the Mobile County Public School board then their intelligence is in serious question. Elected board members are usually to busy building their political power base and are out of touch with reality. Granted, I'm not familiar with the level of the education funding base of Arizona or that district. In measuring Alabama spending per pupil to all of the 50 states, we have a saying, thank God for Mississippi. Education spending per student in lower economic states is very low and the shifting of that instructor to another position is common. The students are the ones that suffer.
Below is a copy of a letter I sent to an administrator regarding justification of going all digital. Mind you, I still love film but as a teacher responsible for preparing students for the real world, I cannot justify film photography any longer.
"Claudia,
Thanks for the prompt reply and the kind words.
Regarding your teacher, I feel his pain. You know how I love the black and white print but this is a CTE course and we have to meet the employability standard. If it is of any use, here is what I have learned from my first full semester of digital only.
First, you need solid cameras. Cheap cameras break; broken cameras don't take photographs. We are using Nikon D50s for the first semester kids and D70s for the photo 2 and up classes. They were not cheap but none of them has failed either. One hundred fifty kids use the same 6 cameras every day.
Second, embrace digital's advantages - the kids do! Rapid feedback is the big thing. I take the prior day's pictures and project them 6 feet across showing every success and near success. The kids love seeing their work big and digital is the fast way to do it. As a teacher, you can instantly clarify any misunderstandings about the goal of the project, inspire the kids to try new things, and give them lots of strokes even in their mistakes. Photography at their stage is about seeing what will happen when they try various things.
Third, with a little work, you can still teach the fundamentals of exposure control. I let them shoot in auto exposure mode for the first 3/4 of the semester, then I have them do the motion assignment. They have to pick a shutter speed to cause a blur, stop the action and pan with the action. Because the cost per photo is nil, they are free to try combinations and see results in ways I could only dream of as a film photography student. I follow this up with the depth of field assignment. The kids then see the effect of f/stop on sharpness. Then we tie it together with the concept of sensitivity, or ISO. Most of them get it by that point.
Fourth, it's about the image. Who cares, at the student stage, if the image was printed with silver or with ink? When they get excited about some images, they begin to see what other types have to offer. I will teach my advanced students a few things about film photography as an advanced topic.
Fifth, it's about workflow. Kids will need to know how to take pictures, edit them, tag them, then get them to an editor or customer at warp speed. If they can't, there will be someone right behind them who can. The photographers who are making the big bucks have this figured out. Locally, Rick R. shoots the PHS prom all digital. He has a technician take the memory cards from the cameras as the prom proceeds, edits out the zits, sets up the order to print however many of each size, and stores each job in a print file. When Rick gets home that night, he plugs the computer into his printer and goes to bed. The next morning the photos are ready to be put in folders. Every job is bar coded so when the kids get their photos Monday morning, they reorder like crazy. He gets the reorder sheet, scans in the bar code, presses how many of what size, and lets the printer do the work. 300 couples have their photos take at about $80 each. He gets about 20% reorders at about $40 each. Cash. You do the math. He shoots 10 proms in the area.
Finally, the kids are doing this already with the cell phones they carry in their pockets. To connect with the kids, we have to be relevant.
Attached is a description I worked up for Barbara M. and Chris M. regarding photography, Career and Technology Education and the WASL. Let me know what you think.
Till next time...
Andy"
The WASL is Washington State's high stakes test for compliance with No Child Left Behind Act.
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), and some safelights and such.
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