Back into the dark..........

I'm often told, mainly by people who don't know me very well but know I'm a photographer , that "no-one uses film and darkrooms any more do they? Especially now that Kodak has gone bust". When I correct them on both points they usually think I'm nuts, or lying, or both and change the subject. No point in wasting time showing them my (expensive) boxes of recently purchased Kodak 10" x 8" film  or my well-equipped and still well-used darkroom. I leave them to wallow in their ignorance. As for my stock of Ilford black and white film and paper, plus my extensive chemical stock, I don't even bother to go there with them. 

From the series, 'Great Little Tin Sheds of Wales'.
Selenium toned, gelatin - silver print

Just lately I happen to have caught on radio or read articles recently about a number of photographers who have been speaking about their love of darkroom work and the notion of the unique quality of the silver-gelatin print. For many of us, that first magical experience of seeing an image appear in the developing dish in the gloom of the darkroom was what hooked us. 

Part of my darkroom sink

As Sara J Coleman noted in her article about Magnum printer Pablo Inirio, 'Over the last fifteen years, almost every photographer I've interviewed has waxed poetic about that "magical" experience of seeing an image develop in chemicals for the first time. You have to wonder whether today's young photographers will rhapsodize as much about the first time they color-calibrated their monitors'. 

For some reason, in photography, everyone has assumed that the digital / inkjet process has totally supplanted the silver / chemical processes. This does not appear to happen in any other creative medium. You hear painters discuss the relative merits of the various media they have access to; gouache, watercolour, acrylic, oils, etc. Plus the many drawing mediums such as pencil, charcoal, crayon. Sculptors talk about the different qualities of wood, marble, stone, bronze etc. When a new material or process becomes available to them, they see it as a bonus addition, not a complete replacement of the existing. They select the appropriate medium according to the piece of work and its intended destination or the idea they are hoping to express. 

7" x 5" & 10" x 8" enlargers in a corner of my darkroom

There appears to be a new generation of photographers now who have no desire to even begin to understand or use anything other than digital media. While it may be appropriate for a lot of their work, I struggle to understand their total lack of interest or any desire to engage with other aspects of photographic media.  

They are excluding themselves from a rich seam of creativity and expression. Not to mention a still - growing and important market for fine prints. I don't think many of the collectors who acquire my work would be very impressed if I tried to palm them off with an ink-jet print. Even if I gave it a false fancy name so beloved by galleries trying to con clients. - 'giclee'. (It's French for spray, get over yourselves)!

Barbagia, Sardinia.
Selenium toned, gelatin - silver print

I'm glad that I am of that generation who came through some of the big changes in photographic techniques. I saw the huge shift from B&W work in both the commercial world and documentary photography. We learned new techniques and adapted. Ditto with the shifts to digital. I now have all those skills to hand and can use them as appropriate for various bodies of work. I wouldn't have it any other way. Now, I have to get back to my darkroom.............