Traditional darkroom,a dying art?

I find it funny that all those who welcome the demise of silver

photography and embrace the technology of digital with a closed mind

chanting comments relating the silver process to the stone age, when

digital is trying to mimic its very outcome. So when you have copied

it, I say welcome to the same era. Grab a tree stump, pull it up next

to the fire and sharpen your spear because you really havent acheived

anything that hasn't been done already.

This is a really tough one for me, as I have been reading this

thread go across my email over the past few days.

 

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I am a large format newbie, and I am at the crossroads of either

making an investment in an enlarger or in a scanner and a

Piezography-enabled printer. Wow, what a tough one. I have the

option of picking up a D5, 3 Nikkor lenses, model 400 cold light

head, and a Jobo CPP2 for under $1400. Or, I can invest in digital

equipment and save the 'wife factor' headaches of hogging the

bathroom on weekday evenings.

 

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I do love the qualities of a silver print. Nothing like the pure

blacks you can get with a print from an enlarger, and the continuous

tones.

 

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I haven't seen any Piezography prints yet, but I am going to try to

get in front of a few in the coming weeks. I am very proficient in

Photoshop, due to my 35mm color work to date. I am skeptical as of

what the final results a 'digital' print will look like, if I were

to compare it to a silver print.

 

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This is precisely the case. No matter which tools you use,

ultimately, your vision and craftsmanship will show. Even though

many more people will be taking up the mouse and doing their prints

through a digital process, this good vision, or lack thereof, will

show in the final image(s).

 

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For me right now, it is not so much a financial or space issue. Yes,

an enlarger will take up quite a bit of room, when you consider all

of the chemicals required. Digital won't take as much room, but it

will hit the pocketbook significantly.

 

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It all winds down to one question: what do you want your final image

to look like? This will make my decision easier. Who cares? If I

decide I like the look of a Piezography print versus a silver print,

my decision will be easy. However, I doubt it will be that easy. It

is like somebody saying that a platinum print is better than silver

prints. They are just different.

 

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So, anybody want to make bets on what decision I will go with?

If you decide to go digital great, but there are several things

you and anyone jumping into digital needs to do before you start

buying.

 

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When you've settled on a system and/or an individual piece of

digital gear, go to every digital forum, sourcesite, any place you can

find w/info regarding the problems, issues, conflicts, info on any

additional items you have to purchase to make the gear work that

aren't mentioned in the original promos.

 

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Find out all the problems first, find out how good the software

is, get a line on the manufacturers willingness to back up the gear if

problems arise after your purchase. This will take time, but is time

well spent.

Can Pixelography yet make an 8x10 as sharp as a fine contact print?

Do the inks & pigments when put on current papers have the depth in

the blacks & the brilliance in the highlights?

Is there the feeling in listening to a printer head whap back & forth

comparable to what we get watching a print come up in the developer?

Part of our photographic endeavors is the tactile pleasure of working

with the image at every step. Even with no electricity, I can process

film and print it. I can hand coat papers, even making paper to hand

coat if necessary. Best of all, my LF cameras don't crash, leaving me

in the lurch when I have something that has to be done & my darkroom

doesn't suddenly go on the fritz when I have to get a print out

quickly.

Pixelography is nice but so is photography. Pixelographers are

targeting photography as the ideal they want to match rather than

seeing it as a new alt process to master & push into different & new

areas. A few are pushing the bounds with their images, using the

medium for creative expression. They will make the new art its own

form. Too many are simply re-hashing mediocrity and calling it "NEW &

IMPROVED".

Papers, chemistry & photo processes are still available and in many

ways we have better products than ever before. Forte & Bergger and

others supply papers that are capable of results to match anything

ever done and are better than most of what has been made in the past.

The real question is whether our talent can match modern materials...

now & in the future.

Andy if I were you I would still go for the traditional darkroom.

Apparently you are already working with photoshop, so you would not

loose any practice. The "wife factor" will be much worse when she

sees how much you spent on the Epson and piezo equipment. The price

you mention for all those darkroom articles is excellent and should

last you for many many years, you will still be making silver prints

with this gear long after your Epson and piezo combo are obsolete.

Richard mentioned woodwork and craftmanship; Raven wanted to know

about availabity: the intersection of these can be seen by walking

into a Home Depot.

 

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I went into the "tool coral" and asked for a coping saw. I got the

same dumb, rodent staring at a dinosaur, look I get when I go into

the middle end photo chain-store and ask for a roll of 120 FP4. I go

to the big two stores in my area and ask for a box of 4x5 film and I

might just as well ask for a cabinet scraper at Home Depot -- even if

they find it, will I get an ounce of usefull advise? No.

I think we will still be able to get quality products at reasonable

prices, but it will be mailorder or we have to drive a long long way,

and then it will be a pleasuer to talk to someone who knows

something. We just won't be able to run to the mall if we run out.

Thirty years in the photo industry...from photographer to photo

shop/lab owner to Photo Marketing Association certified photo

consultant...I've met and have been schooled by many of the

greats...I've build and operated many darkrooms...I've spent the

last four years as photo Industry specialist to the Photo Waste

Recycling Industry...It's time to get your head out of the vapors,

your fingers out of the chemicals...visit www.piezography.com

and www.cone-editions.com...the future is here...Adams would

be all over this, if he was alive...on a visit to his home in Carmel, I

noticed he had three different prints of Half Dome...same image

in three different rooms...they were all different renditions...I

asked him why...he said he felt different each time and used

different materials, each time...Adams was a trained musician,

he said, " The negative is like the score and the print the

performance!" More dynamic range, longer life, environmental

savvy process...Piezography...anyone want to buy an enlarger?

No thanks, I have an enlarger that I'm enjoying just fine. I also

use my computer for printing color. I don't have to turn my back on

one to enjoy the other. They are not the same thing at all. I can

print three versions of any negative I have but that doesn't mean

that I should "get my head out of the vapors" like that is something

bad. The future has ALWAYS been here, so I don't have to make a daily

habit of turning my back on the past just to feel OK. Please

understand that I'm not speaking from an anti-digital point of view.

I use it a LOT. Piezography is great, but as many people have pointed

out in this thread, the comparisons are always between what digital

is becoming or can be, and what conventional photographs have been

for decades. I'm not looking to replace what I already derive

pleasure from as if it were outmoded. It's not.

Grey Wolf's rhetorical question about having a presentation document

or a spreadsheet crash at a crucial moment reminds me of a time when I

was a statistician for a large school district. I was running late for

a board meeting, and there were documents ahead of mine in the print

queue for the printer I ordinarily used, so I stopped at the board

secretary's computer and printer to print out my overheads on my way

in to give my presentation. Imagine my surprise when my charts and

tables flashed on the screen: the printer had used some novelty font

and all the numbers and text had been transformed into cute little

pictures of forks and knives, palm trees, wineglasses....

 

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But what I really came here to say was that for the last several weeks

I've had two photo magazines lying open on my desk, to two similar,

but very different, color "photographs" of white-trunked trees in

autumn color: one a photographic print by Christopher Burkett, the

other a photoshopped digital print by a photographer who will remain

nameless. I used quotes because one I would call a photograph and the

other I would call digital art, and I have been studying them very

seriously to try to understand what the difference is: why the one

looks so full of life and light, so real and inviting, so naturally

and reverently beautiful, and why the other looks so artificial, so

inert, so flat (I mean two-dimensional, not lacking in contrast,

unfortunately!) and so... digital. What I've decided is it has a lot

to do with not being able to leave well enough alone. Just a little

too much unsharp masking, probably... definitely too much color

saturation, too much contrast-- the whites too white and the darks too

black, making the tree trunks look pasted onto the picture instead of

growing within it.

 

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I keep hearing that the new digital printing methods make photographs

realer than real; I've even heard that they will revolutionize vision!

I have yet to see a digital print that makes me gasp, at least not in

an admiring way. If this is what "realer than real" means, Christopher

Burkett has nothing to fear.

You cannot master Photoshop until you learn one thing.....'quit

while you're ahead'.

There's a saying in high-volume retail sales: if everybody doesn't want it, then nobody gets it. I think silver-based darkroom photography will continue, but in not many years' time it will be a very uncommon pasttime indeed, something like silver-point drawing. Film, cameras, one-hour processing, etc., will certainly continue until digital imaging becomes cheap and easily understood & used by all, but printing/enlarging papers & similar darkrroom peripherals will soon become extremely expensive, for lack of demand. I only hope I'll still be able to afford them. As a hobbiest, photography for me is, I'm sure, mostly a satisfaction of childhood & adolescent fantasies, and digital imaging didn't become common until I was in my mid-forties. I'm afraid I must admit that it's not truly a question of artistry & end-product: the process itself just doesn't turn me on. I'll never stop getting wet!

Compare it to hand tool woodworking. Yes Stanley doesn't make any high quality hand tools anymore. For that matter neither do companies like Record. What did happen is small companies sprang up to fill the void. Companies like Lie-Nielsen Toolworks make things that haven't been availalbe new since the golden age. You can still get stuff of lower quality from Stanley or from lesser known companies.

 

For chemistry making your own for B&W shouldn't be too hard. I think metol is the only thing I use that isn't widely available for other uses. Paper and film I figure somebody will fill the niche market no matter what. Exports from East Europe maybe.

 

Does anybody here really think that the whole world is going digital before most of us are long gone? Last I heard even in North America many homes are computer free.