Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Thursday, May 08, 2008
The Status of Our Darkroom
I've been avoiding writing this post since I got a comment from Nathan at the University of Washington a few days ago. I've made zero progress on my darkroom. My processor sits, still, taunting me on my porch. Rental darkrooms close their doors and further limit my options.
I got discouraged when we sat down with my brother-in-law and his wife, both trained as architects, to figure out the estimated cost of building the darkroom. Jeremiah and I were under the misguided notion that we could do it for somewhere in the range of $20,000. Even with the cost of the building being only $9,000 our "real" estimates ended up in the $50,000 - $60,000 range. It just seems like an unreachable goal. There is no easy place on our house to turn into a darkroom - especially with a three-year-old who is already susceptible to asthma. So we are left with building a building.
Since our last post (over a year and a half ago), I was also injured in an accident and have spent thousands of dollars on medical bills that I would have been able to save for the darkroom. We're still dealing with the effects of that accident (financially, physically, and emotionally) so progress has been minute.
I do plan to build a color darkroom and I have created a newer, stricter budget to allow for greater savings to pour into this project. I have a greater sense of urgency now as I hear professionals proclaim the irrelevance of learning darkroom techniques.
I am not sold on this digital revolution - and no, the irony of expressing this on a blog is not lost on me. I mourn the loss of Polariod. I mourn the loss of the latent image. I feel sad for those who will know photography as an image flashing on the screen on the back of an image and who will not discover the magic of the image slowly emerging from a canvas that was blank seconds before. I feel my grasp on analog photography grow tighter. I want my daughter to experience this wonder of creation, to experience that moment when an image - even a test strip - appears. Something from nothing. Something she created.
And so for the time being, a name change is in order for this blog. "Darkroomers: Building An Analog Color Darkroom" will be just "Darkroomers." I'll update it with links I find interesting, news on the analog photographic world, thoughts about my work, and hopefully, progress on the building of my color darkroom. I hope you stick around for a while.
I got discouraged when we sat down with my brother-in-law and his wife, both trained as architects, to figure out the estimated cost of building the darkroom. Jeremiah and I were under the misguided notion that we could do it for somewhere in the range of $20,000. Even with the cost of the building being only $9,000 our "real" estimates ended up in the $50,000 - $60,000 range. It just seems like an unreachable goal. There is no easy place on our house to turn into a darkroom - especially with a three-year-old who is already susceptible to asthma. So we are left with building a building.
Since our last post (over a year and a half ago), I was also injured in an accident and have spent thousands of dollars on medical bills that I would have been able to save for the darkroom. We're still dealing with the effects of that accident (financially, physically, and emotionally) so progress has been minute.
I do plan to build a color darkroom and I have created a newer, stricter budget to allow for greater savings to pour into this project. I have a greater sense of urgency now as I hear professionals proclaim the irrelevance of learning darkroom techniques.
I am not sold on this digital revolution - and no, the irony of expressing this on a blog is not lost on me. I mourn the loss of Polariod. I mourn the loss of the latent image. I feel sad for those who will know photography as an image flashing on the screen on the back of an image and who will not discover the magic of the image slowly emerging from a canvas that was blank seconds before. I feel my grasp on analog photography grow tighter. I want my daughter to experience this wonder of creation, to experience that moment when an image - even a test strip - appears. Something from nothing. Something she created.
And so for the time being, a name change is in order for this blog. "Darkroomers: Building An Analog Color Darkroom" will be just "Darkroomers." I'll update it with links I find interesting, news on the analog photographic world, thoughts about my work, and hopefully, progress on the building of my color darkroom. I hope you stick around for a while.
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