I was just sittin' here with about a zillion dollars worth of computer equipment where I work as a "digital imaging specialist" and was thinking about when I learned photography from my dad in our bathroom/darkroom. Then later when I became a photojournalist and we shot everything on Tri-X. Then graduated to color slides then color negatives and then those damn digital cameras came on board. Remember when you could go to a camera store and shoot the bull with the guys there about film and light and photography instead of bits and bytes and CMYK and all that crap? Seems to me things were a lot more simple then AND a lot more fun. I know I'm kind of an old fart but I was just wondering if any of you black and white shooter folks at this site and the enthusastic students feel the same way. Really I was just bored but I am interested in what you all think. Thanks from Texas.

-- Joe Cole (jcole@apha.com), November 10, 1999

Answers

I hear ya, Joe!

I'm also sitting in front of a tube wondering where the fun went.

My luddite response to the increasing digitalization of our lives it spend more time shooting (mostly old emulsions in) mostly old cameras. My axes are a '56 Minox IIIS, a '68 Olympus Pen EES-2, and a '83 OM-G. And I frequently use one of my dad's old Nikon F2s, YashicaMat, prewar Retina, Crown Graphic, or Graphic View II. I love going into his stinky state-of-the-art-1962 darkroom, souping some Tri-X in D-76, and firing up the old Omega D3!

People always ask me when I'm going to get a digital camera, put up a website, etc. I tell them I spend all my work time in front of computers, but I have absolutely no passion for them. Give me an old manual mechanical camera, though, and I'm in biz! There's something about the tangiblity of mechanical camera opto/chemical photography that's just more fun than digital image processing. For me, anyway.

You know, modern society is so fixated on moving forward that we have no regard for the wonderful technologies of the past. They're obsolete, toss 'em away! Sure, digital is the wave of the present/future, but that doesn't mean that the old ways aren't still worth pusuing! For me, old-style photography is the real creative thing. Sure, I know how to scan my images and tweak 'em for online viewing, but that's not where my vision lies, that's just a means for exhibition.

The magic happens in the darkroom. Watching that image form in the developing tray under that otherworldly red illumination is just magic. Fiddling with images on a monitor is okay, I guess, but it lacks the soul of classic photography. There's no magic, just pixels.

I dunno, I guess I'm just an old geezer too (although I'm only 44)... but I still think the old photo technology and discipline is worth doing. It'll be a sad day when it vanishes altogther - I hope that day is along way off!

-- Michael Goldfarb (mgoldfar@mobius-inc.com), November 10, 1999.

Hi Joe

I agree completely. I see computers as a necessary evil. I hate having to learn the lingo and get an ulcer every time I have to call the "help" line. I had a similar thread in this forum a while back:
Digital Cameras and Dinos

I think the fun parts of B&W photography are still there for the taking, at least for amatuers like me. I can understand how it would be frustrating to be working in the photo industry, surrounded by computers.

You still have complete control over what you do with your free photographic time.

-- Asher (schachter@a1.tch.harvard.edu), November 10, 1999.

Hi Joe,

One of the reasons I started B&W World--and more specifically, these forums--was to offer a place to shoot the bull, talk shop and share ideas & info. You're welcome to hang around here :-).

I have a darkroom in my basement that I frequent as often as possible. It keeps me honest. Unfortunately the corner camera store I frequented as a child is long gone--as are most photo specialty shops.

OTOH, because of my day gig at PhotoHighway I am starting to understand the appeal of digital cameras. I recently brought a Fuji MX-2700 to a party and this camera (and digital imaging in general) became the hot topic of conversation for the first hour!

In defence of digital...it is getting a lot of people excited about photography again. I know a guy who has gone through all of his shoeboxes and is scanning them into his Mac and making collages which he's hanging on his walls. I know someone else who has spent the last 3 years digitizing his collection of 20,000 glass plate negatives. And the look on my daughters' faces when I take a picture of them, turn the camera around and show them the picture I just took on the LCD, is priceless.

What I'm trying to say is that for those of us in the photo industry we are living in a time of incredible change, and that change is not all so bad. It's just new terms to be used when we talk shop, but the end result is still images, which are getting better with every new innovation. Digital will not replace film, just as film didn't replace paint and canvas and Television didn't kill the movies or radio. It will be just, to use a term that will probably give many readers the creeps, be "repurposed" as a specialty craft.

-- Mason Resnick (bwworld@mindspring.com), November 10, 1999.

Thanks guys. I think that's why I like this site, because I can see that others still feel like I do. All my cameras are Canon F1s with motor drives and only one has an automatic finder on it. I've been out of photojournalism a year now and I'm starting to enjoy photography again by shooting black and white for my personal work on weekends. I still shoot some magazine freelance on chrome film but not very much. I sit here at this Mac all day and just don't want to think about computers when I get home. Thanks again.

-- Joe Cole (jcole@apha.com), November 10, 1999.

"Repurposed"... ouch, but yes, I fear it will be. I believe (or foolishly hope) that in 30 years time, when the world in reduced to bits and bytes, we will still be able to use our museum pieces to shoot real film, and get our 'fix' of darkroom fumes.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), November 11, 1999.

As far as film becoming obsolete, I take comfort knowing that the major film manufacturers continue to spend millions on R&D for new emulsions, even in the face of flourishing digital cameras.

Along the lines of what Mason said, medium format didn't displace larger format, and 35mm didn't displace medium format, so I don't think the current digital wave will displace 35mm. Ultimately digital will settle in as yet another format from which to choose, with inherent pros AND cons (who wants Bill Gates' fingerprints on all their photographs??).

-- Asher Schachter (schachter@a1.tch.harvard.edu), November 11, 1999.

I got into large format black & white as a way to re-charge the creative energy batteries my day job drained or dis-charged. At the time I was the production coordinator for a university cable station and spent I don't know how many hours surrounded by glowing wave-form monitors, humming CRT's, the arctic blast of the A.C. etc. etc. So yeah, I guess I concur, I would be breathing Dektol fumes than listening to the hum of the deck coiling fans. On the other hand, a days shooting almost always beats a days printing for me.

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), November 11, 1999.

There's a great quote on another web site that goes something like "You either ride the steamroller of new technology, or you become part of the road". I love old cameras and real darkroom work, but the commercial world is quickly becoming all digital. Soon no one will pay the price or wait the wait, just to scan photos for digital reproduction. Pessimistic? You bet. But like the NRA says, "I'll give up this film camera when you pry it from my cold, dead hands". Or maybe that isn't what they say, but you get the idea! I still have fond memories of learning photography with my dad's Mercury II half frame 35mm and making prints with a film strip projector. There's just something very real about film, processing, and the look of the print. Digital does for photography what digital synthisizers and digital recording did for music- few care about quality anymore. Here's a thought- Maybe some software writer will get rich by selling us all a package containing a disk and a red light bulb. You replace the bulb near your computer with the red bulb. Then the disk installs a program that makes graphic images come up reallll slow, with ripples across them (2 minutes in Dektol, with continous agitation). Man, am I incoherent tonight, but it's a fun discussion!

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), November 12, 1999.

Joe, Have you not read that the digital cameras have not, yet, caught up to our old, "Dinosaurs"? I have 4 Nikons and 2 Mamiya Press cameras and refuse to give up shooting B&W. Of course I shoot color but b&w gives me another appreciation of beauty. I do plan to get a digital camera in the near future but----refuse to give up the oldies. I now have plans to shoot pix here in Las Vegas as well as along Hwy 15 and Death Valley B&W as well as color. Merely have to wait for the proper weather. Keep at it. I've had this love affair for over 43 yrs. and it's the only one that treats me the way I wish. Dave

-- H. David Huffman (craptalk@earthlink.net), November 13, 1999.

While I find digital to be quite convenient there is still the problem of producing good quality, long lasting hardcopies. Friends are always showing me their latest efforts on home printers but they just don't measure up to even a poor quality silver gelatin print and I know they will eventually fade. I suppose that you can get close on large commercial units but when compared to a really good quality print they still pale in comparison and I think anyone will come to the same conclusion. Vegetable dye just can't beat silver. I prefer to leave digitals for web publication (which they are perfect for), photojournalism and of course to those 'shutterbugs' who have to have the latest equipment.

-- Andy Laycock (agl@intergate.bc.ca), November 13, 1999.

A while back, on photo.net Q&A, I suggested we start an "Old Farts' Photo Forum," and, I would do it if I could just stay awake past 8PM! Well, it's 7 now and I'm beginning to nod!

There's much to be said for keeping traditional ways alive. I just bought an OM1, a K1000, converted an old speed Graphic into a funky field camera, and use a nice Rolleicord IV, for just such reasons. I am not at all interested in using this kind of equipment for commercial photography...it's all just for my own enjoyment, with no deadlines or expectations.

Technology advances, and so it should, but there is a place for the quite thoughtfulness of traditional photography.

-- Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com), November 13, 1999.

Amen Todd!

Andy, have you ever seen digital prints that have been output on photographic paper? The technology exists--in fact, Kodak's PhotoNet offers photographically processed prints from digital image files that the average viewer would consider identical to a print from a 35mm negative. That's one way one could deal with the fading issue.

As far as inkjet goes, I've seen prints from Inkjets that equal traditional equivalents, although admittedly they were made under carefully controlled conditions by factory-trained experts. The main problem with getting photo quality is that most inkjet users are still beginners, and even a printer that can produce photo quality simply won't in the hands of an inexperienced user. Most photographers who are embracing digital are still at the beginning of a long learn

-- Mason Resnick (bwworld@mindspring.com), November 14, 1999.

The Internet... just a fad...

But seriously, I have a Hassie and a Nikon N90 along with a collection of old brownie cameras including the one my grandparent's took on their honeymoon in 1934. I also have a digital camera but I don't see it as anything more than a way to get quick images to email to interested parties, like family.

I like the feeling of dektol on my hands.

-- David Parmet (dparmet@bestweb.net), November 15, 1999.