Digital vs Wet

[mark lindsey]

"exploration in all directions of style and craft is not only valid, but often vital for individual creative growth"

-Ansel Adams

"Technical issues of printing must not be allowed to overwhelm the aesthetic purposes: the final photographic statement should be logical and complete, and transcend the mechanics employed.

-Ansel Adams



John Sexton once told me that Adams was very excited that Sexton was adept at retouching negatives. Adams stood over Sexton's shoulder while Sexton slowly scraped away the highlights of a leaf from the horizontal aspen tree negative (yikes). Sexton said that the next morining Adams had a whold stack of negs with absolutly impossible retouching to be done. Sexton said that whenever Adams gained a new tool to have more control over the process it made him very excited.

I kind of think that Adams would have been very much into digital.

[Doug Howk]

I, too, think that if Ansel Adams were alive today he'd be into digital; but at age 100 who could blame him for taking the easy road to image creation.
Some of previous arguments are based on semantics - prints are reproductions therefore all reproductions on paper are prints. Is a graphic artist cartoon creation printed on paper a "fine print"? If he created it in PhotoShop & used digital images for embellishment? If he took a digital image & embellished it? As digital photography merges with graphic arts, is it still photography? What is it about a photograph that makes it a unique form of art? Are we losing one of its major features - some semblance of truthfulness in its capture of reality?
As the price of digital backs for LF cameras drops enabling all of us to make the switch from film, I suspect the craft as well as the art of photography will be diminshed.

[Don Miller]

Do any of you working in the wet darkroom work in color?

[jantman]

This is yet another thread that's going nowhere fast, and I will save my efforts for where they will be of more use.

Don, I'm just starting Ilfochrome Classic (with 120 but intend to do 8x10 contacts eventually) and hope to also eventually be setup to do E-6 processing and perhaps C-41/RA-4.

Personally, the biggest reason for me is that I've tried digital and just don't like the "feel" of it, I like the feel of the wet darkroom.

-Jason

[Scott Walton]

Don, Yes we do color and it is pretty much all from 120/220 negs and alot of 4x5 studio and location shooting. Sometimes I like to get in and do my own color printing like I have been doing from negs of my recent New Mexico trip but we do have full time printers who print the stuff we shoot... Every once in a while, I still like to get my hands in but I never have enough time to print my personal B/W... saving it for the winter... Why do you ask?

[Geoffrey Swenson]

“So while the argument might have been somewhat ridiculous for photography vs painting, it is not so for chemical vs digital.” – Jorge

Same ball of wax brother. – Good try though!

[Robert Haury]

Wow!! This thing really snowballed. I was just expecting someone to say "I feel your pain brother. Go buy an enlarger"

:-)