Darkroom classes

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

there is no reason to teach film photography any more than there is
teaching how to work a printing press. they are skills that are no
longer needed.

It's astonishing (but perhaps it's not) that you think there is no
longer any need to know how to work a printing press. There are still
umpteen million tons of news print being produced every year plus
heaven knows what of higher grade papers. Do you think it's all going
to be used to wrap fish and chips?

it's done with computers now. nobody manually produces newspapers
anymore. do you think they still load letters into the press?

and newspapers and magazines are being replaced with online versions
anyway so even that is a soon to be obsolete skill.

In article ,
Whisky-dave wrote:

Or, they have. Vinyl records are experiencing a resurgence, too.

sales of vinyl lps were 1.4% of total album sales in 2013.

Quite a number of those are from old school bands who want a physical object
in their hands, even a CD doesn;t cut it with them.

actually it's indie bands.

Also some certain typrsws
of musioc prefer vynll for 'scatching purposes even though you can buy CD
players that can do similar it's just not the same.

djs use computers now, regardless of which type of music.

the days of manually scratching with records or cds are *long* gone.

it can resurge all it wants, but it's still going to be lost in the
noise.

I doubt hasslblad or even leica have more than a 1.4% share of the photogrphy market.

they never had a huge share.

vinyl once was king, but those days are *long* gone. same for video
tape. cds/dvds are on their way out too.

digital media is the future.

In article , Stephen
wrote:

This might be of interest. It's about schools around
Boston where film photography and darkroom classes
are popular. Apparently they had to find a store to
get them a supply of materials:


http://betaboston.com/news/2014/06/1...l-film-photogr
aph
y-s
till-popular-at-some-local-schools/

apparently those schools haven't received the memo about digital
photography.

Crealde School of Art offers photography classes including "PH144
Black & White Film Photography". The also have a darkroom rental
program.

http://www.crealde.org/photography.html

The teacher, Peter Schreyer, has quite a solid CV.
http://www.crealde.org/Faculty/Peter...yer/index.html

Quite a nice guy, too. I've participated in some programs with him.

yet another school who hasn't got the memo.

just what do these people who are taking the classes expect to do with
their new found skills? open up a custom darkroom lab?

Make beautiful prints that generations can enjoy.

prints can be made from digital.

With digital, the files would be lost once the person loses interest
in keeping the files up to date & accessible. Assuming the storage
medium even lasts. Digital needs a cpu, software, a display and
something to read the medium the digital file is on.

nonsense. film needs low humidity storage and there are no backups.
once they're damaged, they're *gone*.

digital will outlast any physical media, with unlimited numbers of
backups that can be anywhere in the world, so no risk of natural
disaster damaging anything.

Film doesn't require special equipment to view, you can see the image
on the film with your eyeball.

only if you don't mind postage stamp sized images, and for negatives,
they'll be reversed.

plus it's trivial to pull up any digital image, especially since
everyone has a computer, tablet or smartphone.

there is no reason to teach film photography any more than there is
teaching how to work a printing press. they are skills that are no
longer needed.

So, the catalogs that companies like Grizzly, Mouser, Digi-key and B&H
Photo send out don't exist? Then there are books, magazines and
newspapers.

the bulk of their business is online sales, not from a paper catalog,
which most companies don't send out anymore anyway.

plus, it's a *lot* easier to teach and learn digital photography than
it is film.

The only difference between the film and digital, is what's needed to
get the final output. Well, there is another, electricity isn't
needed to take a photo on film...

the days of mechanical cameras are *long* gone.

In article , George Kerby
wrote:

There was once a time where REAL photographers knew the techniques necessary
to prevent "red-eye". Now, any moron can touch a button to clean up his
sloppy snapshots.

that's a good thing, since it empowers anyone to take good photos, not
just the 'experts'.

In article ,
Whisky-dave wrote:

If people are willing to pay money to learn something then why not let them.

they can do whatever they want but they'll learn more with digital.

the problem is that the original article was about high schools and
colleges teaching obsolete skills to students who have no choice.

Doing film photography is about as useful as being able to change a wheel on
a modern car.

it's more like learning how to repair a mechanical typewriter.

On 2014-06-20 18:29:06 +0000, nospam said:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

there is no reason to teach film photography any more than there is
teaching how to work a printing press. they are skills that are no
longer needed.

It's astonishing (but perhaps it's not) that you think there is no
longer any need to know how to work a printing press. There are still
umpteen million tons of news print being produced every year plus
heaven knows what of higher grade papers. Do you think it's all going
to be used to wrap fish and chips?

it's done with computers now. nobody manually produces newspapers
anymore. do you think they still load letters into the press?

and newspapers and magazines are being replaced with online versions
anyway so even that is a soon to be obsolete skill.

....and yet the B&H catalog arrives in my mailbox regularly.

--
Regards,

Savageduck

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:

It's not about just newspapers. Printing, done manually on a press,
is still a skill that some employ just because they like the creations
they can turn out. It's a art form practiced by hobbyists.

it's a dead end.

what's next? teaching daguerrotypes?

You seem to think that only those skills that lead to employment are
useful. Recreational skills are very important to many people.

operating a printing press is a recreational skill?

In article 2014062012324512991-savageduck1@REMOVESPAMmecom,
Savageduck wrote:

...and yet the B&H catalog arrives in my mailbox regularly.

they're one of the few and it's a complete waste of trees and the
postage to mail them out.

mine goes straight to the landfill. i don't even look at it.

it's *much* easier to check their website as well as other websites for
product information and prices, which is *much* more up to date anyway.

keh still sends out catalogs, which is really dumb because their
inventory is usually quantity one and by the time the catalog arrives,
a lot of what's in it has already been sold or never even made it into
the catalog in the first place.

On 6/20/2014 2:29 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , Stephen
wrote:

This might be of interest. It's about schools around
Boston where film photography and darkroom classes
are popular. Apparently they had to find a store to
get them a supply of materials:


http://betaboston.com/news/2014/06/1...l-film-photogr
aph
y-s
till-popular-at-some-local-schools/

apparently those schools haven't received the memo about digital
photography.

Crealde School of Art offers photography classes including "PH144
Black & White Film Photography". The also have a darkroom rental
program.

http://www.crealde.org/photography.html

The teacher, Peter Schreyer, has quite a solid CV.
http://www.crealde.org/Faculty/Peter...yer/index.html

Quite a nice guy, too. I've participated in some programs with him.

yet another school who hasn't got the memo.

just what do these people who are taking the classes expect to do with
their new found skills? open up a custom darkroom lab?

Make beautiful prints that generations can enjoy.

prints can be made from digital.

With digital, the files would be lost once the person loses interest
in keeping the files up to date & accessible. Assuming the storage
medium even lasts. Digital needs a cpu, software, a display and
something to read the medium the digital file is on.

nonsense. film needs low humidity storage and there are no backups.
once they're damaged, they're *gone*.

digital will outlast any physical media, with unlimited numbers of
backups that can be anywhere in the world, so no risk of natural
disaster damaging anything.

Film doesn't require special equipment to view, you can see the image
on the film with your eyeball.

only if you don't mind postage stamp sized images, and for negatives,
they'll be reversed.

plus it's trivial to pull up any digital image, especially since
everyone has a computer, tablet or smartphone.

there is no reason to teach film photography any more than there is
teaching how to work a printing press. they are skills that are no
longer needed.

So, the catalogs that companies like Grizzly, Mouser, Digi-key and B&H
Photo send out don't exist? Then there are books, magazines and
newspapers.

the bulk of their business is online sales, not from a paper catalog,
which most companies don't send out anymore anyway.

plus, it's a *lot* easier to teach and learn digital photography than
it is film.

The only difference between the film and digital, is what's needed to
get the final output. Well, there is another, electricity isn't
needed to take a photo on film...

the days of mechanical cameras are *long* gone.

Would not a black and white print using a laser printer with carbon ink
on a no-acid paper keep quite well? It could be scanned back into a
computer system if necessary. Color prints might be best stored
electronically and copied to current media from time to time if they
have value.

Admittedly, silver separation negatives can keep very well, witness the
color prints of Prokudin-Gorsky from about the end of the nineteenth
century but I can't see anyone making such negatives now.

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not." in Reply To.

On 6/20/2014 3:32 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2014-06-20 18:29:06 +0000, nospam said:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

there is no reason to teach film photography any more than there is
teaching how to work a printing press. they are skills that are no
longer needed.

It's astonishing (but perhaps it's not) that you think there is no
longer any need to know how to work a printing press. There are still
umpteen million tons of news print being produced every year plus
heaven knows what of higher grade papers. Do you think it's all going
to be used to wrap fish and chips?

it's done with computers now. nobody manually produces newspapers
anymore. do you think they still load letters into the press?

and newspapers and magazines are being replaced with online versions
anyway so even that is a soon to be obsolete skill.

...and yet the B&H catalog arrives in my mailbox regularly.

And if/when I spill a bit of water the catalog is not rendered useless.
I can read it in my hot tub, without worry.

--
PeterN