Analog and Digital Workflow
I started my photography journey in the darkroom exclusively shooting black and white film. I have spent hundreds of hours processing film and completing the many steps preparing it ready for the darkroom. Loading film onto spools for developing, agitating the different chemicals, hanging the wet film to dry dust free and finally cutting into strips for the sleeves. All of this work was worth the first moments when I would run the loop over the contact sheet and begin marking my favorite images with the red wax pencil. Then, one by one, I’d make test prints on RC paper, until I found the one or two images that I would print on fiber archival paper. This made it all worth while.
All of this is to explain that I used to have my hands involved at every step of the process and now I don’t. Though I don’t miss some of it, I do miss my darkroom time and seeing the image develop in front of my eyes. It’s harder for me to get excited to see an image all way through to archival status and hang it in on my wall if I’m removed from so many of the creative steps. I currently only have one print I did of my trip to Africa, printed digitally. I have other recent images that I like, some I even love, but now I hesitate to teach myself the basics of Photoshop and printing digitally or invest in 1:1 darkroom time at a lab in Paris and print from a negative. The last 25% is difficult for me to commit to. And unfortunately, a home darkroom is far off in the future.
In an effort to decide the best route, I plan to make an appointment with the printer at the film lab to find out how the process would work. Because in my heart of hearts, as much I love the ease of printing digitally, and I do for many things, it’s the images that I love, that I think I want to keep on the analog workflow. There’s something about the investment that feels different to me. I’m old school. I still use a typewriter for letter writing so maybe today a digital fine art print is a bridge a bit too far. And, for moment, I’m trying to pass on some old fashioned habits to my daughter.