Frank Van Riper's latest column in Washington Post

[Troy Hamon]

An interesting take on the state of wet darkroom work, indicates that there is a move back toward traditional work.

I wonder sometimes whether the issues I have with digital are just silliness, and whether there is really a global movement that will bear down on us and take our film away...though as I've posted elsewhere I plan to learn to do wet-plate processes if so...

Still, it is refreshing to see the Post photography columnist reporting on a resurgence or at least a long-term plan for wet darkrooms to be part of the photography curriculum at universities. It makes me feel better about the world in some indefinable way.

 

[Jim Chinn]

It's a great article. All the points have been discussed to great extent on APUG, especially Bruce Barnbaum's reservations about digital and the issue of schools either maintaining or dumping wet darkrooms. But its great to read such a positive article from one of the most respected commentators on photography.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Chuck Close is doing Daguerreotypes?? Word, that's something I didn't know!

More on topic: have you noticed that the "old is the new novelty" transformation that's happening to silver photo is pretty unique?

Consider wet collodion: it was very common among 19thC photographers, it pretty much disappeared from the commercial world, and a good hundred years later, it is revived by enthusiasts. Now wet-collodion pictures have that second life because it died at some point.

Consider the ballpoint pen, as mentioned in the article: the computer should have displaced it, but it's still selling because people still need it. It is not enjoying a second life, because it hasn't died. It's still a pretty inconspicuous object of our lives.

Consider finally silver-based photography: despite the rumours of its death, it has been in continuous production since its inception like the ballpoint pen, yet it is already enjoying a status not unlike that of wet collodion (the second life, "so old it's new", etc) as exemplified by this article. I'm sure the near-death crisis of the recent years is for something here.

So silver photo is enjoying a second life WITHOUT having formally died! Now my friends, THAT is postmodern irony! I'm not even being completely silly here: there is something truly unsettling about how quick we are nostalgic, not for the past, but for the present. Think about a return of the grunge...

 

[Dave Parker]

Nice article, I enjoyed that, and goes to show, that we are not going to loose analog photography, it will become a specialized art form that will have great demand again..

Thanks for posting.

Dave

 

[Sean]

Seen a few articles like this lately, good stuff!

 

[dustym]

I posted a few days back when I was looking for a 5x4 in the UK a lot of the major shops said that they could not get enough of them , they were selling like crazy and one of the biggest purchasers of these cameras were University camera clubs.

Goes to show, when you walk into a high street branded shop in the UK and ask for a film camera they reply ' Didnt you know film photography is dead' coming from somebody who's film knowledge is 128 mb or 512

 

[df cardwell]

One difficulty photography has always had
is (many) program leaders and instructors at 'art schools'
never came from a photo background
but 'fine arts'
and whose appreciation of photography is merely
a decontructionist, clip-art approach to imaging.

Analogue's enemy is not digital,
but mindless, antiquated, post-modernism

It is still a thrill to make stuff by hand
and see a print come up under a safelight.

If we want photography to survive,
teach simple classes to kids.

.

 

[doughowk]

Hadn't realized that Van Riper had returned to writing a column for the Post - good news. Here's another article of his in a similar vein.

 

[Jim Chinn]

Frank is a sometimes contributor to Lenswork magazine. Maybe a similar article/essay in Lenswork would be a good read? What say you Brooks?