the last film camera, the last darkroom EVER

in case you wondered what was going to happen in the years to come
this should help answer some questions

https://theinfosphere.org/The_Thief_of_Baghead

there are places that play the whole episode but i don't want
to link to them here, not really sure if any computer prophylactics would be needed.
so google the episode name yourself, watch it on n-flix or youtube its worth seeing
the last roll of film being exposed and processed

UMMV

I love futurama! Just watched that episode again, thanks

BTW it's season 9 episode 4 if you guys want to catch it on netflix.

This touched a nerve. This year, after 54 years of photography and darkroom work, I am now buying what will most likely be (touch wood) my last film camera, a Fuji GS645w to replace my beloved GA645wi, which passed away recently during an on-site shoot in Sarawak. I was (and still am) doing a shoot with B&W film intended for a book project, and I need to use up the 50+ rolls I have with me. This GS645w, while somewhat long in the tooth (mid 1980s), has been well cared for and I hope will last the few months of daily use. If the battery powered exposure system fails, it's mechanical and will continue to function.

I fully intend this to be my last film camera purchase. Hm. Time will tell and we will see.

Ditto my home darkroom, which I nowadays use only for film processing. It has two enlargers, a Leica Focomat 1c with a Multigrade filter head and an LPL 6x7 with color head, two complete Jobo systems complete and a full array of Jobo tanks I have mostly never used, and enough other stuff to fill ten or more large cartons. As for my stocks of stored Multigrade paper, please let's not go there. Ditto film. With luck, the latter will be sold off by the end of this year. The cameras will then be carefully assessed and a few also sold. Finally, the darkroom will go, as I rarely print now.

I will miss those long nights in the dark, with good music on the sound system and occasional breaks to sip a glass of good wine and smoke a cigarillo. I no longer smoke and drink very little, having given up those two pleasures on arrival at my three score and ten mark in life, and on the sensible, to me, theory that it's always best to give up small things in small doses, before they give ME up with a great loud boom...

My partner is thrilled, of course, and says I am being worldly-wise in flogging off the hasselblads, Rolleis, Contax Gs, Nikons et al before they plummet to nyet in value. I doubt this will happen, as everywhere I go and look nowadays I see a resurgence in film shooting (and certainly sales). But there is wisdom there, and even I realise the time is fast coming that I will have to focus my energies on other pastimes. Like travel while I still can.

We will all of us get to this stage in life, sooner or later. A little critical thinking and some forward planning helps.

For all that, other pleasures lie ahead. Plus ca change, as the French say. Thoughts of wheels and full circles.

Previous week, on my way at work in Toronto I stopped for first time at Ryerson university art gallery. I was pleased to see lith prints done by one of the students. I noticed what they have darkrooms and told the person in charge how nice it is to know what they have darkrooms. "They are going to be phased out in next year or two"... On my way back from work I stopped at camera store because they few months ago they have Kentmere RC paper for 50 CAD. The paper was still here, but no price tags. I took one and asked to check. "One hundred and nine dollars". It means 140 with taxes. I left empty handed.

I don't need another film cameras, I have FED-2 and M4-2 and some more. More than I need. I could buy bw film in bulks and have enough of it for next ten years. But not been able to print in my darkroom due to high prices of enlarger paper could make it as the end of practicing film for me. I don't like scans, ink printing and alternative printing methods doesn't seems to support 135 format. While LF, MF is not my cup of tea. Too big for the cup, you know...

Ko.Fe. said:

But not been able to print in my darkroom due to high prices of enlarger paper could make it as the end of practicing film for me.

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I suspect we will lose paper before we lose film. Silver paper prices will most likely continue to increase as the demand falls (oddly inverted economics, the total cost of production needing to be covered by an increasingly smaller group of dedicated users.) Paper surfaces/options will probably shrink dramatically in the next five years.

I would guess that a large majority of film shooters now are "film/scan/print" workers. At least that keeps up demand for film.

sorry
i didn't mean to make a doom and gloom thread !
i just like that robot,
and to think he's a darkroom too, made my day !

I just watched it drinking some coffee and waiting for the rain to stop. The end print scene of Bender in his 'darkroom' was pretty funny, and I like a world where film is still around for another 1000 years.

ozmoose said:

Ditto my home darkroom, which I nowadays use only for film processing. It has two enlargers, a Leica Focomat 1c with a Multigrade filter head and an LPL 6x7 with color head, two complete Jobo systems complete and a full array of Jobo tanks I have mostly never used, and enough other stuff to fill ten or more large cartons. As for my stocks of stored Multigrade paper, please let's not go there. Ditto film. With luck, the latter will be sold off by the end of this year. The cameras will then be carefully assessed and a few also sold. Finally, the darkroom will go, as I rarely print now.

Click to expand...

At age 49, this makes me sad to read. I plan on shooting until I can no longer and then printing until I fizzle out. I'm sure I will strip down my camera equipment when and if I am not physically able to get around and shoot like I do now. I have been doing this for 40 years...I know no other life.

ParkerSmithPhoto said:

I suspect we will lose paper before we lose film.

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I am not so sure about that given how many fine art shooters and devout enthusiasts are only interested in black and white film because of the real silver gelatin print. If paper were to disappear, demand for B&W film would be a commensurate and microscopic fraction of what it is now. I lose silver gel paper & the darkroom....I quit photography entirely.

Thank goodness for young people like those who I mentor who are not only optimistic, but highly adaptable and resourceful in making sure film and the darkroom rides well into the future.

Ko.Fe. said:

Previous week, on my way at work in Toronto I stopped for first time at Ryerson university art gallery. I was pleased to see lith prints done by one of the students. I noticed what they have darkrooms and told the person in charge how nice it is to know what they have darkrooms. "They are going to be phased out in next year or two"...

Click to expand...

That's disappointing to hear. I learned the basics of how to develop film and paper, use large format, and even do colour printing at Ryerson (continuing ed course). They had both communal and private darkrooms and they were always full of students using them whenever I was there. If they phase them out I wonder how many colleges or universities in the GTA will actually offer any traditional darkroom printing for photography students. Although with the cost of paper getting more and more expensive, I wonder how many students would be able to even afford to print in the first place...

The photo program I am affiliated with in the bottom of my signature expanded their darkroom by 300% in terms of usable space and +50% in class offerings about three years ago. It is well funded and almost always full in terms of enrollment.

You American film shooters are lucky people, you have the population (and the retail markets) to support a thriving traditional film and drakroom industry. In Australia where I live, film darkrooms are disappearing everywhere. An amazing amount of wonderful film equipment often comes available to buy (tho not at discount rates, not in Oz where some Ebay sellers want A$500 for rusty Meoptas) as school and community darkrooms close down and owners dispose of enlargers and other equipment purchased at great cost a few years before.

In Hobart where I now live, there aren't any community darkrooms, and I'm not aware of any schools with a communal darkroom. Time passes, things change. I have my own darkroom, and at times I've offered to teach younger photographers the basics of the processes. No-one has been interested enough to take me up on it. "Yes, but you know, film is so, well, 19th century," as someone in Sydney once told me. So it is. But film is still being manufactured, and going by the prices some Ebay buyers are prepared to pay for good equipment, it will likely be with us for a long while. I live in home.

I'm now not far off the three score and ten mark and age has wearied me, inevitably the time will come when I will put away (and likely sell) my heavier cameras. My Hasselblad kit is heavy and a Fuji GA645 is (almost) as good. My Nikkormats, Nikons Rolleiflex T and Contax Gs still see use, but one camera and one or two lenses now means less to carry and less weight in smaller backpacks, and one by one I am reassessing the gear I use and whether the time has come to downsize. Recently a friend, aged 74, was told my his GP to give away the RB67 kit as too heavy for his B&W landscapes. I prescribed a Rollei TLR. So he will make do and go on for a while yet.
As I will. Two fridges (one for film, the other for enlarging paper) yet to be emptied, keep me going.

The Fuji GS645W sale (see my earlier post), fell through, BTW. Someone else bought it, or the owner opted to keep it, or whatever. No matter, never mind. Someone in Malaysia has a Horseman Convertible 67 up for grabs. Another friend wants to offload a Hexar RF. I'll be looking at both. As if I need them, but that's not the point, is it? Life - and the traditional darkroom processes - will go on. I want to see those two fridges go out the door. In due time.

ozmoose said:

You American film shooters are lucky people, you have the population (and the retail markets) to support a thriving traditional film and drakroom industry.[...]

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This is very true. Down here it's very difficult to say the least to practice analog photography. I have to import literally everything from the USA or Europe, and pay the exorbitant taxes (sometimes upwards of 100%) associated with it. It's so much of a pain, not only in analog photography, but in many many other areas that I'm seriously considering moving abroad.

I plan to continue shooting developing and printing as long as I can phisically do it, and (if need be) if the chemicals needed to make the emulsions and developers et al are still available.

same here michael.
i already have started to make
my own emulsions from scartch again,
( its not hard, thelightfarm.com shows how )
and make developers out of kitchen cabinet
( its not hard, caffenol-cookbook.com shows how )
supplies, and while i have a super saturated salt solution
i haven't yet used it to stabalize my prints ... but i know i can if i had to.

for me it will have absolutely nothing to do with if i can or if i can't buy any film or paper.
besides, its fun.

That's what I was thinking about the other day: if scarcity and prices goes too high to afford, slowly will be making photography in a pre-industrial age way, making our own emulsions, paper and chemistry. My bet is I'll have fun with that too, even doing only LF and ULF photo, and getting rid of all the superb 35mm and MF cameras I have now,

Cheers,

Renato

Yes, I'll be 70 this year, and have a HUGE backlog of film to print dating from 1966, so I'm looking forward to spending MORE time in the darkroom. Less shooting, though. AND the price of paper is a HUGE obstacle for me too!!!

Wow, 50 years of backlog! And I was complaining today, that I have a 6 months backlog, and can't find enough time to print all I would like to! (just emerged from my 8+ hours session, smelling like fixer and wondering where the sun went...)

Cost of paper is an issue to us all. Recently had the misfortune to lose 500 sheets of 8X10 kodak polymax, haven't got over that yet...

I'll soon be 66 and have absolutely no intention of abandoning shooting film and printing until I'm horizontal and forced to look up at the grass from its roots! I'm currently recovering from some serious health issues (5 months in the hospital, lower leg amputation) and still need surgery on both arms. Despite these temporary setbacks, I am in the process of taking inventory of the equipment I have and what I'll need to set up a new darkroom. I am planning on turning an existing bedroom into a permanent darkroom with the only work Ill leave to others being the beefed up electrical and rough plumbing. The rest I'll do myself. My point is that while I am well aware of the numerous product and service losses that analog photography has experienced over the last couple of decades, I remain optimistic that film and paper will be available for many years to come. Based on the number of younger people that were interested in wet photography when I was teaching a class, I also believe that there will be at least enough newcomers to replace us old geezers when we go to the big darkroom in the sky. Where prices of film and paper will go is anyone's guess, but for me, its a matter of priorities. I'd rather buy a brick of film or a box of paper than go out to a restaurant for dinner. Keep on shooting!

Tus,
I hope you'll recover and adapt to the new condition ASAP, you're sort of inspiration for many of us,

Cheers

Renato