Defending the Darkroom in Education

[Mark Sawyer]

By way of introduction, I teach high school photography at a rural public high school in Arizona...

Our principal told me today that the darkroom will be shut down immediately, and only digital photography will be taught. (I was also told in writing that teaching analog photography had "no industrial value" and that teaching it was "unacceptable and lacked professionalism".)

My students are quite upset about it; several were in tears over it. (Hey, what's high school without a little drama?) I have several who are planning on attending college photo programs, and the four closest colleges that have photo programs have analog as a major part of the program. I asked whether I wasn't supposed to prepare students for college, and was told no, I was to prepare them for a trade right out of school.

(BTW, I teach about 80% digital, 20% analog/hybrid.)

I'm trying to come up with some "vocational/trade" reasons to keep the darkroom around as a small part of the program. Any ideas or resources?

[lenser]

Is this short sighted jerk also going to halt the teaching of Gregor Mendel in biology, Shakespeare in literature, Newton in math and physics, Rembrandt in fine arts and Beethovan in music . Drop some names and the foundations they established for their fields and maybe he could have an insight into the fact that the foundations and what offer are the platform for the transitions into the levels of the current world.

[polyglot]

How about "shutting down a critical resource mid-course is unacceptable, lacking professionalism and has no educational value"? And besides, art classes are all about "industrial value" - wtf?

The real question is who has power over the principal? Is there a school board you can go to and explain exactly how this is a poor decision for the students and the reputation of the school?

The only justifications provided are based on shortsightedness so there's no point arguing with them, you need to make it clear to the people who matter exactly why this is a bad decision and not allow the principal to frame the debate in terms of trades and poverty-grade expectations for the students' careers. In other words, you need to make "industrial value" irrelevant because frankly, photography as a craft has basically none any more.

[Kimberly Anderson]

Ask him to shut down the football program. None of those kids will go on to play football 'as a vocation' immediately out of High School.

The pendulum is swinging back and before long there will be photographers getting work if only because they can shoot film. I had a conversation about this very thing today with a commercial photographer here in Utah.

[Mark Sawyer]

I appreciate and agree with the sentiments. The students want to learn it, and I want to teach it. The students buy a few supplies, and the rest I fund out of my pocket, so it doesn't cost the school a dime. It doesn't take anything away from the digital side, and the hybrid work (scanning negatives or old family photos for digital printing) adds a twist the wouldn't learn otherwise.

But it comes down to whether the darkroom offers immediate employment skills after high school. It was sad to hear a principal tell a teacher "your job isn't to prepare students for college." (Direct quote, btw.)

Soooo... are there any job prospects out there that could be improved with a little extra knowledge of the darkroom?

[Kimberly Anderson]

Yes, they can come be my assistants in my own darkroom.

I have taught both HS and University level photography courses. Your principal's intentions are misguided and unfortunately predictable.

IMO the digital workflow and understanding of both exposure and printing is greatly enhanced when one understands the origins and mechanics of traditional silver-based photography.

A good digital print strives to mimic the finest gelatin silver prints. Without an understanding of how to make a fine gelatin silver print most ink-jet printers don't know what they are attempting to make.

These sentiments not only come from me as a photographer and an instructor, but also from many...MANY of the students I have taught in the past. There is a difference between the photographer who has only known the pixel and one who knows the smell of fixer.

Also it's cheaper. Tell him that. It might sway the argument in your direction.

[Brian Ellis]

. . .

A good digital print strives to mimic the finest gelatin silver prints. Without an understanding of how to make a fine gelatin silver print most ink-jet printers don't know what they are attempting to make. . . .

Not at all. A good digital print strives to improve on the best gelatin silver prints. The old darkroom silver prints weren't the final word in what can be done in making a print. Far from it. As someone who printed in a darkroom for many years and has now been printing digitally for many years, I can tell you that I look at my old darkroom prints and almost always see ways by which I could improve them by printing digitally using materials and techniques that weren't available or weren't feasible in a darkroom. Anyone who views the purpose of printing digitally as nothing more than duplicating what could be done in a darkroom is taking a very narrow and very limiting view of what can be done by printing digitally.

I can't speak for "most" ink-jet printers (any more than you can). But every serious photographer I know who prints digitally certainly knows what he or she is attempting to make.

I do think it's a shame when schools close down their darkrooms. But Mark's principal isn't necessarily a "narrow minded ahole." He just takes a different view of the purpose of teaching photography than Mark does and than most here do. He's thinking of it as a vocation, a job, rather than as an art form. That's a very normal dichotomy in photography education - there's schools that teach "commercial" photography and there's schools that teach photography as an art form and there isn't a lot of overlap in my experience. It's a pretty distinct difference in the fundamental purpose of different photography programs.

Unfortunately when it comes down to a competition for money and space between art and vocation the vocational people will win more often than not. The best (most elaborate, most expensive) equipment and facilities for teaching photography I've ever seen were at Daytona Beach Community College in Florida. They put the facilities at the art department of the large State university where I taught to shame. And I was told that the reason they could pay for it all was that "vocational" programs were eligible for extensive State and federal funding that wasn't available to university art programs.

If the principal at Mark's school is like the people who made decisions at the university where I taught, I'd approach it on a financial basis. Pick a favorable period of maybe three years or five years (not just one year). Compare the cost of buying computers, upgrading software, paying the tech people, etc. with the cost of the darkroom (try to minimize the fact that much of the digital stuff would be bought even without the photography uses).

Hopefully the costs of the darkroom compare favorably. Then if feasible and relevant, offer to reduce the space taken up by the darkroom, compromise a little if possible - give up some of the space if the digital people or others are after it - but not all of it. And finally, try to get the principal to consider the view that the sole value of education in general and a darkroom in particular isn't in preparing a student for a specific job. Which is certainly not an easy thing to do at this time. But if it can't be done it's going to be hard to justify a darkroom because a darkroom certainly isn't a source of specific job training today.

[Kimberly Anderson]

As someone who printed in a darkroom for many years and has now been printing digitally for many years, I can tell you that I look at my old darkroom prints and almost always see ways by which I could improve them by printing digitally using materials and techniques that weren't available or weren't feasible in a darkroom. Anyone who views the purpose of printing digitally as nothing more than duplicating what could be done in a darkroom is taking a very narrow and very limiting view of what can be done by printing digitally.

My point is that since you have years of experience in the darkroom, you have a baseline of what a good print looks like that you can then use as a measure to judge your digital prints against.

If someone comes straight into digital printing there is no baseline.

[Greg Miller]

My point is that since you have years of experience in the darkroom, you have a baseline of what a good print looks like that you can then use as a measure to judge your digital prints against.

If someone comes straight into digital printing there is no baseline.

These are school kids who (most likely) have no baseline with any printing, darkroom or digital. The baseline that they will have will be whatever good prints the instructor shows them.

[JMB]

Your principal's intentions are misguided and unfortunately predicable.

The questions raised here are deeply political and only deeply political responses will cast real light on the matter. In the meantime, its very good to hear that counter measures are afoot. Congratulations, e.g., and good luck to the Weston Collective.