Even In Digital Photography Age, High Schoolers Still Flock To the Darkroom 240
v3rgEz writes: In the age of camera-equipped smart phones and inexpensive digital cameras, many high schoolers have never seen a roll of film or used an analog camera — much less developed film and paper prints in a darkroom. Among those that have, however, old school development has developed a serious cult following, with a number of high schools still finding a dedicated audience for the dark(room) arts.
Probably sheer inertia (Score:1, Insightful)
Schools are probably teaching it because their staff knows how and they have the equipment. Not because it's a useful, saleable, or even particularly interesting skill.
It's an artform (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual appeal (Score:5, Insightful)
It's comparable to the resurgence of interest in vinyl records. The only worthy attraction is in the sheer retro-ness of it. It certainly isn't in the quality; a good DLSR today is an amazing tool, capable of far more than yesterdays SLRs in every area but outright spectral retargeting (IE, you can put IR film in an SLR and go -- an IR sensor of equal quality, not so much), and that includes in ultimate image quality in normal regimes. Even as far as developing goes, modern software has made the range of actions and remediation one can pull off in the darkroom look like a tiny collection of beginner's moves.
I do not regret, not even one little bit, no longer having to do the tray-and-line dance with my work. Furthermore, I shoot more, and better, with my DSLR than I could ever have hoped to accomplish with any SLR I ever owned.
Up until the current generation of DSLRs, I always felt that I wasn't *quite* there. But today, I literally have no reason to look back. I have to hand it to Canon, Nikon, etc... they've done a great job. Between the quality obtainable, the ability to go out and shoot a thousand *good* images without changing "film", the incredible range of usable ISO (sensitivity to light), in-camera preview -- and disposal -- so you actually know what you have while you're still on-site and able to try again, to readily available histograms and after-the-fact white balance... and then "developing" with Aperture or Lightroom... I'll take a DSLR every time.
Re:The actual appeal (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The actual appeal (Score:2, Insightful)
That's an ugly stereotype. Partial truth, of course, but it's not a reason for out of hand dismissal of the perspectives of those who identify as audiophiles at large. Don't be a dick.
Re:Ansel Adams (Score:2, Insightful)
It would appear you completely missed, and still miss, the point of either of the exhibits you attended.
Photography is about art, skill, and expression, regardless of your choice of medium. Both digital and analog bring a lot to the table in different ways depending upon what you are looking to accomplish. With respect to analog photography, there is skill and technique which goes well beyond that which would be applied to digital photography, That blurring and lighting effects you would use in photoshop, for example, would take a photographer time and patience in the darkroom to create. In its own right, most of what you take as conveniences in digital photography were in fact a things which required a proper photographic artist to create in analog photography. This in part is one of the many reasons film photographers tend to take issue with digital photographers who tout that they get better results. In digital photography, you use equipment and software which has all of the benefit of the digitization of techniques developed by the photographic artists of the past, but requiring little of the skill and training to achieve their results.
If you choose to stand on the shoulders of those who came before you and proclaim how good your work is that's one thing, but referring to their work as complete garbage only shows how purely ignorant you are to the very art form that you claim to be defending. You may have your opinion and are welcome to it, but before insulting classic photographic artists in an attempt to defend modern photography, stop for a moment to decide how uncultured, ignorant, and arrogant you would like to be perceived.
about : I grew up learning to shoot 110 film as a young child, later working my way through automatic 35's and SLR's up through what was and still is my favorite analog camera, an Olympus OM4-T. I presently shoot digital for casual photos and such, but still find significant value in both the experience and results of shooting and developing traditional film.
Re:It's the chemicals.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Its natural because the students are using the darkroom to smoke pot and screw. Film? Yeah, whatever...