Don’t let photography die!

The origin and basis of photography must be grasped to embrace the full depth of this art form. Is the wave to digital drowning the wonderland of silver-gelatin photography? As a professional (www.silberstudios.com) I am concerned.

When I look my first photos with my Kodak Brownie Bullet, after winding the film, I rode my bike to the Menlo Park Pharmacy to have it developed. From there it was out of my hands and sent off to the Kodak lab, to return some time later as small prints that never matched what I had viewed.

I had seen the darkroom at Peninsula School where I was a student in the seventh grade, but had only a vague idea of what went on there. Then that same year my teacher showed me the magic of chemicals, enlargers, and safelights. This really was magic because now I was in control of the image from the moment I framed it to the very end of showing it off to others.

I spent years working in darkrooms, studying and perfecting my skills. But then one day digital came along like the bulldozers that mowed down the trees in the meadows across our street. One moment they seemed fascinating (bright yellow Caterpillars) but the next they heartlessly destroyed what had taken so many years to develop. Digital moved in first as a novelty but then gathered speed mowing down past connections: no film, no darkroom and wierd space opera apparati straight out of the Jetsons—that’s a camera? What happened?

Now, before you think I’m just an old foggy stuck in past hording my ever shrinking supply of film, I have to confess that I have embraced digital photography, but I know my roots and have made digital adhere to the background from whence it came. How? I’ll explain in later articles. Is it even possible that were Ansel Adams alive during the digital revolution he too would have embraced it—you bet. Ansel was what be would lovingly term “a geek”. But stay tuned, meanwhile don’t let photography die!

Marc Silber
www.Silberstudios.com