Since 1980, has the number of B&W photographers who own a darkroom increased or decreased? How many of us are out there in the U.S.?

I was big into it from 1971-1981, and have built a darkroom recently, but I feel like the only guy in New Hampshire who likes to spend his spare time in a dark room listening to vintage 1965-1975 music while he makes B&W prints.

How elite is the "elite few" who do what we do?

-- Ned Finkel (nfinkel@mindspring.com), January 10, 2002

Answers

No idea, but after working for several engineering and manufacturing companies with the kinds of people who might tend towards such things, I've never met even one. The few people I know who had darkrooms have dropped the hobby, gone digital, or died. I often say that if they stopped making enlargers tomorrow, no one on the planet would ever want for one- all the enlargers the world will ever need have already been produced. Don't get me wrong, I love doing this and will shoot film for as long as I'm able. So will a bunch of other users of this forum. I suspect there are "hot spots", otherwise camera clubs couldn't exist; there just don't seem to be a lot of B&W folk near me.

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), January 10, 2002.

I have no idea. Photography is a relatively new hobby to me. But I also feel one of not many who do things in the way we do. Outside of this and its brother forums, I don't even know people who understands that I buy Vitamin C just to make photographic developers and bake breads. When I carry my Olympus Stylus Epic in my pocket, many people implicitly assume that it's a digital camera. When I carry Fujifilm GA-645i, many people think that's a crazy digital camera. I only hope people don't think my Mamiya 6 is a bomb or something.

Right now, the pressure to migrate to digital is only moderate. I don't know what happens when the dynamic range of consumer quality CCD exceeds that of silver salt films, the density range of home or office grade computer printers exceeds that of cheapest box of paper you can buy, etc, etc, become true. About this kind of things, I'm not going to say tube amps sound better kind of things :-)

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), January 10, 2002.

Ned, if you're doing it for your own enjoyment, don't worry about how many others work in the dark. I don't think there is any doubt that digital will eventually eclipse film in every respect. But that is not what matters. Developing film and printing in a darkroom offer a satisfaction that will never be replaced by digital.

But just to assure you you will not be the last Indian, here's an interesting observation I've made recently. I live quite close to B&H Photo, and I seem to find my way there about twice a week. At the beginning of each college semester, I see the darkroom section absolutely mobbed with students loaded down with photo paper and chemicals, and many--regarding your other post on bulkloading--even carry bulk loaders to the counters. And, if anything, in recent years I've seen these lines get longer, not shorter.

So while I'm sure digital will eventually dominate the photo industry, it will be a long time before wet darkrooms disappear. By the way, there are still a number of shops here in Manhattan where you can buy vinyl records ... and some of us still prefer their sound played on our beltdrive turntables to CD's. I will admit, however, I've never considered replacing the CD boombox in my darkroom with a Lin Sondek.

-- Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com), January 11, 2002.

I second Ted's observation. Every year at the begining of the semesters it's imposible to find any Tri-X or b/w chemicals in the five or six decent camera stores in my area (northern Westchester County NY / Fairfield County CT). The b/w darkroom classes at two of the local art centers up here are always booked up as soon as the class catalog comes out.

On a personal level, I've been evangalizing. A few friends of mine who have shown some interest have open invitations to stop by and use my darkroom when I'm otherwise engaged and one of them has already taken me up on the offer.

Art supply stores seem to be doing pretty well - there are ten of them within a short drive of my house. So if people are still interested in canvas and oil paints I suppose it means that folks will still be interested in silver-based photography long after Kodak's stock price hits the single digits.

-- David Parmet (david@parmet.net), January 11, 2002.

It's impossible to see the future, but my guess is that B&W, chemical darkroom printing, and chemical photography in general will have enthusiasts and practitioners as long as materials remain available. Commercial, scientific, and snapshot imaging is certainly going to be almost all digital very soon, and probably most personal and artistic photography on film will soon be printed digitally. However, silver prints are a unique medium, and there will be (I hope) a niche market of artists and hobbyists that makes the continued production of papers and chemicals economically feasible for some manufacturers.

-- Tim Nelson (timothy.nelson@yale.edu), January 11, 2002.

This is just a small sample, however, it has been consisted for my area.(Atlanta, Ga.) I teach at an Art Center, with students ranging from 13 years old to 70. My darkroom classes are always full, usually with a waiting list. More than half of those individuals are continuing classe. Of that group more than half set up their own darkrooms. I have begun offering more technical types of classes and workshops and they have been successful so far. ie. advanced printing comparing various paper types with developer combos, film/developer combos. etc. One of the dealers in the middle of the city started a school a few years ago, because so many of their customers kept asking where they could go to expand their knowledge. They have just expanded their darkrooms and added more class rooms. I am hopefull that there will be a group of people who will continue to be drawn to the "old ways". In fact, checking out the workshops available around the country, more and more folks are getting involved with bromide printing, Van Dyke, etc. Perhaps this is a sign that b&w printing will be around a long time. Fewer folks than 50 years ago, but still popular and hanging in there. I have my fingers crossed.

-- Ann C lancy (clancya@mediaone.net), January 11, 2002.

I would have to say that in my area, Utah, the number of people taking classes and becoming interested in b&w is steadily increasing. I have gotten to know the different managers of the several photo stores around here and they all say that they can't keep up their inventory especially at the begining of a new semester. In fact it is such a problem sometimes that I have had to resort to mail order to supplies. Also take a look at e-bay. There is a ton of quality equiptment for sale there and most of it seems to be getting gobbled up by somebody.

-- Justin Fullmer (provo.jfullmer@state.ut.us), January 11, 2002.

After I retired a few months ago, at age 56, I joined a local (Brooklyn, NY) camera club, Most of the members are older than me and all have given up their darkrooms and shoot chroms, color negative, or digital. A few have expressed some interest in starting to do darkroom work again, after seeing my prints, but most see my devotion to B&W printing as somewhat quaint. Fortunately, I have also noticed large numbers of young people at the B&H darkroom dept. Also, I visited a small Brooklyn camera store (Raleigh) last week which has a good selection of chemicals and darkroom supplies. I was told that they stock this stuff mainly for college students. There's still hope!

-- Robert Marvin (marvbej@earthlink.net), January 11, 2002.

Our club runs various special interest groups throughout the year, one of which is B&W group. We have a 'beginners' group and an 'advanced' group with a total number of people participating probably 30-40. Half the prints put up on the walls at 'Print' nights are B&W

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@unite.com.au), January 13, 2002.

I live fairly close to R.I.T. in New York, and get a lot of my supplies there. During the school year it is always busy with the college kids buying supplies for their photography classes.

-- Janet (photojanet2256@cs.com), January 13, 2002.

I have just built my first darkroom in the basement of my home. I bought a new 45MXT enlarger with an Aristo cold light source. I managed a public darkroom for 6 years in Chicago during the 90's, and the place was always crowded with students and professionals. Digital is a different breed - I get great pleasure printing with an enlarger, but find a computer screen to be a real drag, as I can't wait to quit looking at the monitor. I hope the materials for silver printing continue to be available for a long time. I plan on offering private, individual instruction in my darkroom for people who are serious about photography. I am curious to see what kind of response I get.

-- James Webb (jwebb66@yahoo.com), January 19, 2002.

I can make a better b&w print with a $200 darkroom setup than i can with a $2000 digital setup! I believe that the run to digital has really opened up the darkroom due to the flood of used equipment available for really cheap prices, a photographer interested in making their own prints can go the darkroom route much cheaper than digital and this has to at least offset some of the folks going from wet to digital processing.

Joe

-- Joe Holcombe (joe1013_@excite.com), January 22, 2002.

Quite simply, darkroom = art. Are oil and acrylic paints being cast aside for a digital "paint" programs? I don't think so. In this day and age of digital takeover, film manufacturers are producing the best black and white films ever, and the research continues.

-- Ken Bruno (salmon70@hotmail.com), January 22, 2002.

For, one of the joys of b/w photography is the darkroom work. Which paper to use for a specific image ?? How much contrast ?? I have heard of digital this digital that. Digital is great for people who enjoy making images electronically. There are also photographers who enjoy photography 'cause they enjoy the printing process using the old fashion way.

My personal feeling is that over time, some photographers who changed to digital would eventually go back to darkroom work...why ??? Because darkroom work was why these people got into photography in the first place....just my opinion.

-- Peter Ubaldo (balawang88@yahoo.com), January 25, 2002.