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Author Topic: Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light  (Read 6709 times)

mahleu

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Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light
« on: February 11, 2009, 01:39:48 pm »

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bill t.

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« Reply #1 on: February 11, 2009, 11:04:40 pm »

I have spent so much time in darkrooms like those that I can process most photosensitive materials just by bleeding on them.  Honestly, I can't say that I feel very sad about their passing.

Oh, I could spend a sentimental day or two flipping Nikkor tanks, dodging, burning, picking the best grade of Brovira, maybe a little selenium toning, hey why not load up the basket with a couple dozen Ektaprint 8x10's?  How 'bout some C22?  E4 anyone?  Hey what happened to spare cold-light bulb?  Do we have enough bicarbonate to dump the Ciba chemicals (and still have drain pipes)?

But you know what, I JUST DON"T LIKE HANGING OUT IN DARK CLOSETS!  But I do miss my 84-beat-per-minute electro-mechanical metronome, my beta waves could hit an exact 84bpm for years after unplugging my last safety light.  Of course my Gralab timer still graces the wall not far from the Epson, BZZZzuzuzuzuuuzzzzzzuzuzuzuzuz...so sweet (it will buzz forever if you let it).

The only thing that brought me back to the world of photography was the irrelevancy of the darkroom and the inspired brilliance of that fabulous, liberating invention, the wide format inkjet printer.
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Anders_HK

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« Reply #2 on: February 11, 2009, 11:43:23 pm »

Quote from: mahleu
Quite Depressing http://www.richardnicholson.com/darkroom/

Thanks for that post and link. It makes think...

I still shoot film alongside digital but have never had a print made traditional way. I should try find a lab here in Hong Kong for that, or elsewhere.

Lets hope that some traditional labs will remain in artistic community. It would be sad for such as art to perish. I walked past a large format B&W studio in Shanghai about a month ago. He also had his own studio lab, as in traditional and not digital. The photos were truly mind blowing compared to many digital slr studios that were lined along same street...

The world seem overly sold on digital and while there are advantages... just stop and think of how much $$ we all have spend on digital and electronic products the last few years. We are sold on it, but it ain't always better. Unlike the analog the digital products do not seem to last... yet we admittedly are sold on them.

Anders
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Martin Kristiansen

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Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2009, 04:22:04 am »

I like the enlarger with the Apple sticker on it
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Rob C

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« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2009, 06:28:22 am »

Have to say, with a past that included working in an industrial darkroom along with another three guys followed by three different darkrooms of my own, I can no longer shed any tears for the experience.  Somehow, just looking at the photographs of the workspaces was enough to cure me of any residual yearnings that might have still lingered.

The single bit of hand printing that I miss is the ease of general, not very precise, shading. It was better by hand than I manage with the computer. No, there is another thing: Kodak WSG 2D.

Rob C

michael

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« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2009, 08:39:10 am »

After 30 years of darkroom work (B&W and color) I have a nostalgic twinge when I see a good one, but zero desire to return to working in one. Not only do I not want to work in a toxic environment ever again, but I don't at all miss the lack of precision and repeatability that working digitally provides.

Nope, you couldn't pay me to go back.

Michael

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situgrrl

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« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2009, 09:44:06 am »

In his blurb, Richard Nicholson mentions the disconnect that now exists between us as photographers as we all sit alone in front of our computers instead of dropping film into a lab and sitting, waiting, with fingers crossed in the pub whilst it was developed.

Online forums such as this have sprung up and are and excellent resource for technical information but for learning and critique?  I used Ceta in Soho and would sit in the pub next door talking with other photographers, critiquing and mainly, bitching about stuff whilst our film was developed and much as I love Luminous Landscape and Purelight, internet forums just don't provide the community the labs once did.  I tried joining a photography club - clearly the wrong age and wrong gender for that game!

jjlphoto

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« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2009, 12:24:07 pm »

Quote from: michael
Nope, you couldn't pay me to go back.

Michael

I've done it all. Cibachrome, dye transfers, yada yada yada.

Go back to all that? Not on your life!
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bill t.

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« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2009, 11:52:44 am »

Quote from: situgrrl
sit in the pub next door talking with other photographers, critiquing and mainly, bitching about stuff whilst our film was developed and much as I love Luminous Landscape and Purelight, internet forums just don't provide the community the labs once did.  I tried joining a photography club - clearly the wrong age and wrong gender for that game!
Have you tried gallery openings?  The booze is free and the talk is cheap.  But no Guinness on this side, too bad.
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Justan

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« Reply #9 on: February 13, 2009, 12:06:59 pm »

Heck, the combination of Photoshop, a Z3100 and a good digi cam are far less expensive than my old color lab was, less operating costs too. Modern tools are nothing short of a revolutionary change in a number of technologies!

Rob C

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« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2009, 03:49:55 pm »

[quote name='situgrrl'   I tried joining a photography club - clearly the wrong age and wrong gender for that game!
[/quote]



Maybe just that those clubs have different agendas - the concept seems an anachronism these lonely office days (or nights), so perhaps you ain´t missed much?

On the other hand, I always felt that there are two types of photographer: the one that just wants to do photography; the one that prefers to socialise about it. I suppose that an internet forum is a mix of the two...

Rob C

situgrrl

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« Reply #11 on: February 14, 2009, 12:58:31 pm »

@ Rob - I think that's why I liked the informal gathering of randoms waiting for negs to be returned - we were photographers rather than camera geeks.

@ Bill T - I don't get invited to openings - perhaps I hang out in the wrong circles!  Free booze normally gets me there!  I've been to one or two openings and have found them terribly pretentious.  As a result, I tend to look online for inspiration - which is a shame because I've yet to come across a screen that touches a print and I'm sure much work that looks wonderful in print is lost online.  That said, I really enjoyed the lack of pretentiousness at Annie Lebowitz's exhibition.

@ Olympus - please hurry the hell up with your micro 4/3 camera so that I too can leave behind my chemicals and the painful scanning.  Please please!

bill t.

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« Reply #12 on: February 14, 2009, 03:36:38 pm »

Quote from: situgrrl
I think that's why I liked the informal gathering of randoms waiting for negs to be returned - we were photographers rather than camera geeks.
A distillation of questions at my most recent opening...
"These look great!  What kind of camera do you use?"
"A Nikon D2X."
"How many megapixels is that?"
"12"
"umh......have you seen the new Canons?"

That's why there's booze at these events.
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Rob C

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« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2009, 04:02:27 pm »

Quote from: bill t.
That's why there's booze at these events.


I can quite understand; you´d need one, a stiff one, a drink, I mean.

Rob C

jjj

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« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2009, 12:21:28 am »

I used to love printing, but I've never been near a darkroom since I discovered Photoshop.
I saw my old DeVere 504 the other day. I gave it to a photographer friend and now even he doesn't use it and it now sits forlornly in his warehouse space.
Just like Michael, I do not miss toxic chemicals in the slightest.

I also do not miss the sheer pain of scaning film either. Though I do have a lot of images that need scanning, but always gets put o back of queue for some reason!
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Rob C

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« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2009, 11:19:16 am »

Quote from: jjj
I also do not miss the sheer pain of scaning film either. Though I do have a lot of images that need scanning, but always gets put o back of queue for some reason!



I still have a scanner - have scanned most of what´s left and worth it from my old pro days - but I find that what seemed interesting at the time has sort of lost its charm for me today. I suppose that what this means is that work that suits commercial clients is not that easy to convert into what one feels might interest a more art-orientated world.

However, it did give me a fairly good base from which to get into digital printing and led to the eventual purchase of my one and only digital camera, a D200 which I managed to configure as close as possible to my old manual Nikons of yore, which means that it doesn´t really intrude much into the shooting process as I know it (YMMD and probably does). Perhaps the single feature that, sadly, has become more interesting to me with the new camera is the focus confirmation light - I use my old manual lenses still - and I  notice that age doesn´t tend to aid vision that much. Had the blinking camera been fitted with a split-image finder along with the very helpful grid, it would have been perfect. But who ever expected that from a maker? Even with film bodies, Nikon wouldn´t let you buy a grid screen with split-image for fast lenses, only one for slower ones. Which sort of seems the opposite to what anybody would require...

Rob C
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