Richard Kenward wrote:

>....In a reminiscent mood.

Richard

I started my first tentative steps in photography, exposing Ilford
ortho-chromatic glass plates and developing them Ilford ID2 developer, under
a red safe light and fixed in hypo and washed for 30 minutes.  We skipped
the wash in between developer and fixing in those days! It was still another
couple of years before best practice(!)introduced water.

If someone had told me that I would be taking photographs forty years later
with a box that still looked like a camera - (well a 35mm anyway) and not a
10 x 8 Gandolphi with a pnuematic shutter and no film was being used, I
didn't need to be in total darkness and I could process(?) the images by
hitching the box or its transferable card to another small box and look at a
screen and print out in the light, I would never have believed them. 

Computers were things that occupied shed loads of space and sent Sputniks
into orbit, with less memory than we now have in a mobile phone! Cameras
cannot get much smaller unless you have matchstick fingers to press the
buttons! Transfer speed will increase at a breakneck rate and the materials
will change from gold to tantalum. Something will replace the pixel driven
light acceptors I am sure.

We can only marvel at what the next forty years will bring in the world of
imaging. The process has probably not even been thought of yet. Will we
regard the now digital world with the same nostalgia? I hope the world is
still here for those to enjoy it! 

Kindest regards
Norman Childs
Mobile:  +44(0)7831 519217
Tel:     +44(0)1256 767611
Fax:     +44(0)1256 767612 
Website: http://www.greenshoots.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard
Kenward
Sent: 25 August 2004 14:59
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PRODIG] The demise of darkroom???


In message Wed, 25 Aug 2004, Neil Cooper writes
snip
>Rivals Eastman Kodak and Fuji are also revamping their film divisions 
>to cope with changing consumer demand. Kodak said last month that sales 
>of all digital products jumped 48% in the three months to June, while 
>revenue to traditional photography fell by 8%.

Dear Neil/All

It would be very sad to see a time were it was no longer possible to buy 
professional quality film and paper for that matter and of course those 
nasty chemicals.

For anyone not used to the simplicity of shooting film ....OK, OK I know 
full well the downsides, but the simplicity of walking out with a pocket 
full of film and the only cable to take being the cable release takes 
some beating<BG>

>
>The dye is cast and I for one, after 20+ years in dank unhealthy 
>darkrooms, rejoices!

Well yes there were indeed some pretty horribly and unhealthy darkrooms 
about, but thankfully I have always worked in ideal conditions, and as a 
result always enjoyed this side of the image creation business.   Just 
as now when the image can be made or broken at the post shoot stage, the 
same went for the darkroom.

Anyone who has not experienced film processing and printing work will 
have missed out on a whole area of wonderment of seeing images "grow" in 
the dimness, and the whole "hands on" work that created that perfectly 
balanced print....colour or monochrome.   Always a problem to get two 
identical "manipulated" prints though!

Things have moved on....where the enlargers once stood is a row of drum 
scanners and all the associated hi tech digital paraphernalia, but the 
atmosphere of mystery and anticipation is still there....the ventilation 
fan still spins, the outside world still is out of sight.  Lets keep 
film for a little longer please!

In a reminiscent mood.

Richard
-- 
Top quality drum scanning just a Post Office away....Sony Artisan checked
too! Call 01873 890767 for a chat and to get our pdf and start seeing the
benefits.

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