Tim Grey’s Blog

I got my “real” start in photography in high school, when I took a photography class and spent many untold hours in the wet darkroom, producing prints from my black and white negatives. I spent many years working with film, but jumped into digital quite early, and for the most part haven’t looked back.

While I had spent many hours working in a wet black and white darkroom, I had never actually printed in a color wet darkroom. In fact, I had never even set foot in a color wet darkroom. I knew about it in theory, but not in practice. Last week I decided it was time to change that.

I’m the president of the Board of Directors at Photographic Center Northwest (PCNW) in Seattle. PCNW offers a wide range of classes (including a certificate program) and workshops, which include both film and digital courses. As a member of the Board I’ve given tremendous thought to what the future of the school should be. That includes thinking about how (or whether) we continue offering color wet darkroom classes and lab rental, when digital has obviously taken over photography in many ways.

I decided I needed to have a better perspective on just what it was we had to offer, so I enlisted the help of one of the faculty, Seth Thompson (www.seththompson.com), to show me how the process worked.

This proved to be an incredible experience that took me back to much of the joy of working in a wet black and white darkroom. Granted, it lacks the ability to see the image coming up on the paper as it soaks in the developer, but the magic of exposing the paper from a negative is still there.

Now, I’m not going to give up on digital and go back to film photography and printing. I feel digital simply has so much more to offer in the way of flexibility that I’d have a difficult time giving it up. But I do have a new appreciation for the process of produding color prints from film, and plan to dig out my old black and white negatives and spend some time in the lab at PCNW to relive some of the fun I used to have before digital.

If you have an opportunity to produce prints like this from film, I highly recommend it. Even if, like me, you’re commited to digital, there is a certain magic to the processes that served photography for so many years.

There aren’t too many places where you can still make your own color prints from film, so if you have the interest I’d suggest you do it soon. If you’re anywhere near the Seattle area you can review the course offerings at PCNW, and if not hopefully you can find a similar facility near you.

So, do you think wet darkrooms should be kept around for those who still appreciate what it has to offer, or is it time to give up the ghost and stick with digital? I think you might be surprised how many photographers aren’t yet ready to dive into digital. Now I have a better appreciation for their perspective.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 10:43 am and is filed under Printing, Film, Philosophical. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.