lets talk about that old favorite, black and white photography!
when was the last time you used b&w film? so long ago that you cant even recall? oh, thats bad news, then! i suppose its excusable, because we live in the digital age and its very easy to produce your digicam and pop off a few shots….no film to develop and no cost either….but whether or not we ever sit down and actually print out thos digital shots is another matter! a survey has found that 95% of digital photos never get printed out!
the other reason is that we’re afraid of wasting film, so we just leave it at that. what i say is, like that famous ad you see everywhere – Just do it!
don’t worry about the pictures not turning out nice. most of my first roll didn’t, yet i still experienced the magic, still felt encouraged to want to do more black white photography.
ok, if you dont want to go all the way, fine…either get the film developed and scan it, or get it printed as well…you can always scan the prints and manipulate the pics digitally if you prefer doing that, rather than trying out your artistic touch on the prints! but its an understandable point…after all, if the slightly higher cost of b&w film doesnt put you off, the costs of processing or of buying the equipment to do it yourself probably will.
and if you never learned how to do it in the first place, how are you going to keep the tradition alive!
but that was then. now there’s a different direction…b&w is back, because brides want to see b&w photos in their wedding albums!
black-and-white is back because it’s still a great way to learn about how film “sees” light. that’s why good photo educators have never abandoned teaching beginners how to work with black-and-white film and images. that’s why any photo school worth its salt, will still teach how to expose, process and print black-and-white film in the darkroom.
the bottom line? black-and-white photography is back because it’s beautiful.
fine art vintage photography has mushroomed in part because b&w silver halide images are long-lasting and resistant to fading…how long will our digitally printed prints survive?? nobody knows…and so we may well end up losing important works of art…
theres magic in the b&w darkroom….its a relaxing, informal place, where you can spend as much time as you want, trying to obtain that rich b&w print….all the while listening to your favorite music…cut off completely from the hustle and bustle of the real world! i remember, i once spent the entire weekend in the darkroom, aside of coming out to use the bathroom and get something to eat, of course!
not only that, i fondly remember using the darkroom at school one time with another student, a good looking girl. well, we all got so engrossed with the developing we were doing, that the teacher forgot about us 2 in the darkroom, locked the door from the outside, and walked away to lunch!
you can imagine the talk that went around the whole school about me and the girl being locked up in a “dark room” for an entire hour…i walked around with a red face for long afterwards….sadly, i have to report that nothing happened..we were all to naive in those days….!
anyway, in my opinion, if the black-and-white “wet” darkroom were to disappear, the world will be a sadder place.
the educational value of black-and-white film is not limited to making black-and-white images. in truth, and as i understand it, color silver halide images are actually made out of three (or more) layers of black-and-white images that interact with color couplers to produce layers of color dye that when viewed together give the illusion of a full range of colors.
whether you’re learning to control color film and prints, or even the different layers of a color image that has been scanned into a computer, the more you know about contrast, exposure latitude, and highlight and shadow areas of black-and-white images, the greater your mastery over color will be.
so basically, even if you’re accomplished and comfortable working in color, you’ll derive great benefit from learning about black-and-white photography! whetted your appetitie yet? good..thats the whole point of this article!
im in the process of offering for sale b&w photo papers, and hopefully later on, larger items such as enlargers etc, so pls bookmark this site and keep looking in regularly.
as far as chemicals are concerned, i already offer these…click here to find out.
