Does anyone like the darkroom process but not really into photography in general?

[4season]

For me, maybe 10% of darkroom time felt creative, and the rest was like washing dishes and putting things away.

 

[Brendan Quirk]

For me, maybe 10% of darkroom time felt creative, and the rest was like washing dishes and putting things away.

Any effort put into reducing the drudgery can help rekindle the pleasure in the creativity. An efficient workflow can give you the space to enjoy the art again!

 

[brian steinberger]

For me, maybe 10% of darkroom time felt creative, and the rest was like washing dishes and putting things away.

I agree. I enjoy getting out with the camera and exploring. I also enjoy developing film and scanning it. But that’s where it ends most of the time. I try to make fiber prints of some negs once in a while but it turns into hours and hours spent on one negative and while the resulting print might be a keeper, with two small kids and a business time is something I don’t have a lot of right now. I’d rather spend that free time outside with family and a camera.

I always thought once I retired I would get into the darkroom and print my best work.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I agree. I enjoy getting out with the camera and exploring. I also enjoy developing film and scanning it. But that’s where it ends most of the time. I try to make fiber prints of some negs once in a while but it turns into hours and hours spent on one negative and while the resulting print might be a keeper, with two small kids and a business time is something I don’t have a lot of right now. I’d rather spend that free time outside with family and a camera.

I always thought once I retired I would get into the darkroom and print my best work.

By the time you retire, you'll have grandkids who you'll wanna spend the time with?

 

[Prest_400]

I was recently in a photo club activity where they shared some competition results, and it reminded me why I forget to participae in those. The top winners were manipulated images, then of course more artistically leaning uprunners.
Exhibitions I do, and actually have even too much material. But it's easy to get drawn into admin tasks rather than step back and enjoy it.

Honestly for me photography is creative documentation. I've gotten really good feedback but I do it for myself mostly, and never liked social media because it feels devalued (likes, bling bling etc). But I do have a good portfolio that I am glad with, and that is important.
And I rather have some nice family pictures, taken with a classic film photography characteristic, than another generic whatever tree picture.

I like photographing and printing, but have a capacity bottleneck for the latter. Many frames to print.... that is why I like medium format together with its look. Before taking the picture I think if that would be a print to be proud of.

With the children and grandchildren discussion; I unfortunately have not yet formed a family, but my family and its photo archive were a reason to pick photography. I know kids take so much time! Anyhow, I've been with film almost all my life and would not drop its use, rather see how to continue. For example, color I just do hybrid and get scanned at the lab.

 

[mshchem]

I always enjoy playing in my darkroom. I enjoy making/taking photos as well. It doesn't seem like drudgery.

 

[Alan Townsend]

Does anyone really like the process of making a darkroom print and methodology of developing film, but not really into photography in general? I have a hard time finishing a roll of film a lot of the time and I've realized that this is the case for me as I really like the cameras and the process, but I find myself clueless as to what to shoot since I'm not a very creative person. I've never needed a creative outlet.


Is this the case for anyone?

My problem is the opposite. I truly enjoy doing the photography out in the world, and also film developing and scanning to see a quick result, but darkroom work leaves me cold. That's why I'm an alt printer type, so I can do most of my darkroom in a lightroom, or only sort of darkish room at least. When I was young, I printed most of my photos in the darkroom, but got tired of that, Many years later I started doing digital photography using scanned negatives. Hated that, so left photography for 20 years. Now back again doing alt printing, which I always enjoyed doing out in the sunlight when I lived in southern Arizona. Now I do that in my basement in Illinois using UV led strips.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

By the time you retire, you'll have grandkids who you'll wanna spend the time with?

I sacrificed darkroom time for almost 20 years to take care of my daughter and her needs. Now that she has a kid, it's her turn to make the necessary sacrifices, and either make the same mistakes I made as a parent or invent a whole bunch of new ones for herself.

I'm very happy to see my grandson once or twice a month. On non darkroom days.

 

[snusmumriken]

I can relate to many of the perspectives described so far. Myself, I like the darkroom stuff, but actually doing it is a means to an end. Likewise, I delight in the optics and mechanics of my camera, but not to the point of idolatry.

Like the OP, though, I often struggle to finish a film, so I’m intrigued by his comment on creativity. In art at school (before age 12, when we had to choose science or arts), I felt myself to be a dullard, because although I could draw anything they put in front of me, I couldn’t conjure an image out of my head. There was nothing there, I had nothing to express.

Photography suited me better, I think because it is subtractive. You start with the subject in front of you, and by leaving out the irrelevant and manipulating the controls that are available, you capture what is important to you in a way that communicates the same to others. The
creativity in photography seems an emergent quality, best understood by comparing photos taken by different people. Maybe, in the end, that’s not so very different from painting, but it doesn’t make me feel quite so unimaginative.

 

[Don_ih]

Creativity is overhyped and mostly a fantasy. Activity is what's important - and engagement with what you're doing. Add to that productivity and you have something of discernible personal value as opposed to some ephemeral concept of being creative. The only thing worse than "creativity" is "originality" - neither of those two things matter. If you are doing what seems worthwhile to you, that should be enough. Comparisons with what other people are doing are usually pointless.

It can be difficult to finish a roll of film if you don't see anything you want to photograph. That's not necessarily a lack of interest in photography but more likely the realization that it's very easy to end up with boring, pointless photos. Not much sense taking the photo if you'll never want to see it.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Creativity is overhyped and mostly a fantasy. Activity is what's important - and engagement with what you're doing. Add to that productivity and you have something of discernible personal value as opposed to some ephemeral concept of being creative. The only thing worse than "creativity" is "originality" - neither of those two things matter. If you are doing what seems worthwhile to you, that should be enough. Comparisons with what other people are doing are usually pointless.

It can be difficult to finish a roll of film if you don't see anything you want to photograph. That's not necessarily a lack of interest in photography but more likely the realization that it's very easy to end up with boring, pointless photos. Not much sense taking the photo if you'll never want to see it.

That happens to me often. Sometimes the MF roll film goes bad; it takes so long to get developed. Also with 4x5 film in their holders sitting around.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Creativity is overhyped and mostly a fantasy. Activity is what's important - and engagement with what you're doing.

This x 1,000.

It can be difficult to finish a roll of film if you don't see anything you want to photograph. That's not necessarily a lack of interest in photography but more likely the realization that it's very easy to end up with boring, pointless photos.

This is how I see it too, with slight nuances.

There are times when I spend an entire roll on one subject, just because this subject is offering me so many photographic possibilities.

And there are times when I spend a whole day wandering around with the camera and not shooting anything, not because I haven't seen anything interesting as such, but because I didn't see anything that would (or could) make a good photograph.