After a long hiatus from the darkroom and doing my own film processing - shooting more color than B&W, scanning and using labs more than printing - I'm returning to what has given me the greatest satisfaction and creative control. Last evening I began setting things up to start processing B&W film again, and later on I'll finish straightening up the darkroom. For too long I've concentrated on scanning negs, working with color film, and playing with digital. It was a good experience, and I learned a lot, most of all that I like B&W. I like the control of processing my own negs, the joy of seeing the results of MY skill and handiwork, and the superior quality of a silver B&W print on fiber (heck, even some RC) paper.
I'm not giving up on the other aspects of photography - color will now have a place, as will scanning and digital output - but I feel I must make room for more B&W. There are still, - and I believe there will be for quite a long while - quite a few B&W emulsions available in many different sizes, including those long discontinued sizes like 127 and 620. http://www.efkefilm.com/ is an example. I just can't completely get around the idea of shooting color and "converting" the results to B&W as has been done by many people lately. It just ain't the same. The tonality is different, the grain patterns are, well, nonexistant, and the printing process that many use (from scanner to the Lightjet or Frontier to be printed on Crystal Archive or some such similar paper) seems to be the lazy and roundabout way to get a print which is far from the quality and the look of a true B&W silver print. Likewise, the limited range of choices and creativity that's available with the use of chromogenic B&W emulsions. The more I used them the more they were found lacking on many levels. Over the last couple of years I've tried to accept the mediocre results from the new technologies, and while there is some nice work being done there are too many layers between the photographer's - this photographer's - vision and the final print. Too many zeros and ones between the initial vision and the final print. Too many flashing diodes and glowing LCD screens, too much reliance on histograms to determine what is the correct exposure. The histogram shall be the bane of photography, for reliance on it detracts from the flow of photography. Make an exposure, check the histogram. If the histogram doesn't look right, make another exposure, repeat as necessary. meanwhile, with each repetition of the cycle the subject changes, the light changes, a cloud moves, something small and subtle enters or leaves the scene, a fleeting expression is lost. Technology leaves a cold and souless result, immediacy is lost. A photographer should KNOW how to make an accurate exposure for any given scene. One must understand light, not how a light meter, works, and a histogram is little more than an overly complicated light meter, showing you what you did after the fact, not helping you beforehand. Someone in an earlier thread likened many current photographers as camera operators, and I felt myself coming to that same conclusion about my work. I point, I shoot, and give the balance of the creative process over to someone else, to some further technology, to some expensive machine, make the final interpretation. More and more the control and creativity moved from my vision and my hands to someone else's, to a machine in a dark part of a lab, where the "magic" occurs. Unfortunately, that magic all to often was a trick created and played by another magician, one with a different sensibility and a different audience. Just a final thought: as photographers it's your show. You create the score and the performance. Shel Belinkoff > Pat White and Vic wrote: > > My 2001 MZ-S, my constant companion, is loaded with 2004 film, and in 2010, > > when today's digital wonders are considered laughably obsolete, I'll be > > using it with the amazing new 2010 films. Am I in denial, living in a dream > > world? I sure hope not! > > > Pat White > > I don't think so Pat. I think you're on the right track. As long as you are > happy shooting film continue to do so until you either no longer can or don't > want to. By then, DSLRs will be much better and much cheaper. > Vic
