carstenw
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 p.1 #16 · Just developed my first roll of film ever | |
pawlowski6132 wrote:
carstenw wrote:
pawlowski6132 wrote:
Sorry. I didn't realize you knew everything. Thanx.
I don't know everything, by far. But go back and read your own second post again, will you?
I did. I'll try to put it another way.
First, I'm not stating my opinion. It's a fact. And it's supported by Adams, Weston, Picker, Caponigro and others. If you're a student of b/w history and ever been in the darkroom (which you say you have) it should be abundantly clear that one has 1000% more creative options in the darkroom than they do in exposing a negative.
Adams called the negative the written score and he would interpret it in his darkroom.
How could you even argue with that?
Well, this is beginning to sound like a conversation, so I will go along.
There are no facts in this thread, just opinion. You can call on the big names to support your opinion, but you should know that there are just as many voices (if not more) on the other side of the fence. For one, Henri Cartier-Bresson never did any development of his own stuff at all, to my knowledge, and he was perhaps the best photographer ever, or certainly one of them.
So the opinions span the range from do nothing, to do something, to do everything. While I love Ansel Adams' work, I also think that he was a bit limited. He was an amazing landscape photographer, but mediocre-to-good at most other things. He was also a darkroom fanatic, so of course you would hear words like that out of his mouth. That doesn't mean he was right, just that this was his opinion. Facts are things in physics books.
My personal opinion is that I would love to have a darkroom, and to do all my film stuff from end-to-end, but time and space don't leave me this option at the moment, and I am quite happy to develop my own film, but to scan and do the rest on the computer. This takes much less room and time, and computers have at least as much scope for doing good work as a pure analog process does. Sure, from the time you scan, the look will be different, but not necessarily worse, just different. Some prefer one, some prefer the other. Personally, I prefer medium format film, but digital 135 format. I do shoot 35mm film from time to time, but find the quality too low in general.
As to my recommendation, it was just that setting up a full darkroom takes time and space and dedication, and if you are not guaranteed to have all of these, then an attempt is just as likely to end in frustration and the cancellation of the whole project, so why even try. For me, the primary enjoyment in the film process is the shooting, not the development or the darkroom work, although I do enjoy all three. Again: opinion.
My request from you is that in the future you recognise that there are all kinds of opinions out there, and no facts, not here. The next time, tell me your opinion, but don't tell me that I am wrong, and don't speak of facts.
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Have you ever heard about opinions. Sounds like you have one or two too many 
) and you aren't under the same "time sensitivity" that you are when printing "live". The two will never be exactly equivalent, but boy it sure would have been nice to learn on digital before struggling with trial & error in the darkroom in "real time". Being much more portable, far fewer fumes and less mess is kinda nice too.
