Kevin -
Regardless of our many opinions and experiences with in the darkroom, I think you are wasting your time, and missing a chance to teach children about photography by pursuing the darkroom issue.
From the standpoint of the school administration, film and darkroom supplies are one more drain on shrinking a shrinking school budget, a possible danger to the children (real or imagined) and one more thing that will eat up possibly eat up the administrations time if something goes wrong.
If you're really trying to teach children the basics of photography, you sure don't need a darkroom. The short feedback loop of digital will increase the speed of learning for the kids. Frankly, I think it would be much easier to teach photography without all of the silly mechanics of the darkroom getting in the way.
While the smell of the chemicals brings back happy memories for you, I and many of the members of the list, It's something that is part of our generation's learning experience, not that of the kids.
I remember a transition period where "they" said we had to learn how to use a slide rule before we learned to use a calculator. This is pretty much nonsense. Although the slide rule is a pretty neat way to demonstrate logarithmic relationships.
I remember when Computer Aided Design was young, "they" said people needed to learn manual drafting skills before getting on the computer. Again, nonsense. Even though those manual skills are useful, they are not a pre-requisite.
There is just no compelling reason.
We learned to do many electronic editing techniques as analogs of our darkroom methods because we were building on what we knew. That doesn't make it necessary for someone else to learn that way. In fact, it may make it much more difficult.
If you've been following this list, you've watched several of us travel up the digital learning curve. When Michael Reichman reviewed the *istD and said that the histogram should be added to the quick preview, and asked that the ISO setting be always displayed somewhere many of the list members discounted these ideas.
That's because we weren't used to thinking of histograms and didn't think of resetting the ISO speed for every photo.
After many of us have gained experience with the camera, several have changed their opinions and now desire these features.
At this point, I can't imagine teaching anyone about exposures without incorporating the concept of histograms. And as far as the exposure is concerned, ISO is a much more important part of the decision than it was in the past.
That being said. If these are young children I'd be tempted to use very simple auto-exposure point & shoot cameras and concentrate on composition for a long time before even talking about expousre.
Now, if you want to teach it as a skill in and of itself, like oil painting or basket weaving, that's just fine. But don't our generations experience with the darkroom as something necessary for the "proper" photographic learning experience.
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Darkroom or Digital for beginners Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
My childrens school is to be offering photography as a subject. I have talked to the principle about this and he is very keen about an all digital photo lab type set up.
He stated that with a darkroom there was could be problems with Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) with the use of chemicals and children with asthma. Also as the world was going digital this would be a real world solution. The school is well equipped with computers, so there would be no need to build another (dark)room for processing. Added to this there is no cost of film.
He did say he could be swayed if there was a compelling arguement in favour of film. If you have any reasons why children should be learning in a darkroom, I would love to hear them and pass them on.
Kind regards Kevin
-- ______ (_____ \ _____) ) ____ ____ ____ ____ | ____/ / _ ) / _ | / ___) / _ ) | | ( (/ / ( ( | |( (___ ( (/ / |_| \____) \_||_| \____) \____) Kevin Waterson Port Macquarie, Australia
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