Another one bites the dust

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John Rountree

Nothing is what I want
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I just received permission from the curriculum committee to change the photography program at the college where I teach to an all digital program. We will be teaching wet darkroom as a historical process. We offer a degree in photography, and since we are charged with preparing our students to earn a living, it seems unreasonable to ask them to spend their time in the wet darkroom, since they are here for only two years, including both summers.
I just thought this might be fodder for some good discussion.
 
At Phoenix College, we just built a new Art building. As part of the continuing photography curriculum, we have put in a brand new 30 station wet darkroom, including 24 new LPL 4x5 enlargers. We also have the Eric Fischl gallery and two annual photography competitions which feature silver printing at their core.

It is the opinion of the Art staff here that schools offering fine art degrees (bfa, mfa) in photography, require knowledge of darkroom procedures. Commercial degrees on the other hand, require the balance be tilted toward digital, and so we also have two 25 workstation digital labs (Mac based), with large format printers.
 
AND, Phoenix College will still be able to soup prints after the Big Pulse wipes out the electrical grid.

Yeah! I saw it on TV machine! Jessica Alba told me!

So much for "good discussion"!

😉
 
John Rountree said:
I just received permission from the curriculum committee to change the photography program at the college where I teach to an all digital program. We will be teaching wet darkroom as a historical process. We offer a degree in photography, and since we are charged with preparing our students to earn a living, it seems unreasonable to ask them to spend their time in the wet darkroom, since they are here for only two years, including both summers.
I just thought this might be fodder for some good discussion.
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Pardon my over blown rhetoric
I think these sorts of decisions are short sighted, and a real disservice to students--

Why is it any more reasonable to ask them to get fat and bleary eyed spending yet more hours in front of a computer screen?
Computers are everywhere, as are opportunities to learn various tools that go with them-- top flight darkrooms are harder to come by.

Whether or not they make use of darkroom printing in their later work, the sensitivity you develop through working with wet process is immensely helpful in other areas-- learning how to get colour balance on a hand made print develops ones colour sense in a way that hitting the grey balance in photo shop never could.

In terms of making a living, commercial photography is in such dire straits these days, that I think someone making ambrotypes, has a much better chance of succeeding than your average digital wedding shooter. It's about how well you work with people and promote your work-- not having the latest greatest tools.
 
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jpberger said:
>BIG snip!

It's about how well you work with people and promote your work-- not having the latest greatest tools.
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I learned this lesson decades ago when I asked the guy who sold me camera equipment if he'd shoot the wedding of a friend. He said, "I'm not the best photographer around but I'm pretty good AND more importantly, very easy to get along with." She hired him and was delighted with the results.

Unfortunately, it's a lot easier and more profitable to sell stuff than teach people skills.
 
It makes sense to me that colleges are about practical job training and should stress digital photography. Universities are about higher education, and in a fine art degree there should be the option of painting and traditional wet photography.
 
My photo education involved the wet darkroom. And going into the working world was mostly working from private experience. I'm glad I have my degree and I'm glad I know the wet darkroom in and out. But it's sad to say it's officially useless knowledge in the profession today.

Good luck developing the new curriculum.
 
If the US educational system is anything like the Dutch one, students will be able to develop their darkroom skills by upping their focus on the wet process as they please. After all:
We will be teaching wet darkroom as a historical process.
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I think it doesn't make any sense sticking to an all-wet curriculum if students have to sign up for evening classes after getting their degree, since the education wasn't sufficient to earn them a living.

In general jpberger, I think it's not fair to a large group of successful digital wedding photographers to degrade their profession with your tone of comment, and it's unfair to subsequently assume most of the students with a degree will join them after leaving school.
 
The program I teach in is a Graphic Design & Web Design program, and students are required to take a single semester of wet darkroom work. We recently revamped the department and this was kept, one component of an important 'hands on' knowledge. Design students work on paper with traditional tools (pens, pencil & brushes) for the first year before moving to the computer. This summer the entire building was gutted, so computer labs can be upgraded and rooms resized to work with computer based classes- all except the darkroom, which was renovated four years ago. The classroom and lab area outside the darkroom is getting a facelift, so I'll have room to demo on a freestanding enlarger in the classroom instead of individually in stations in the darkroom itself.
 
Chris101 said:
At Phoenix College, we just built a new Art building. As part of the continuing photography curriculum, we have put in a brand new 30 station wet darkroom, including 24 new LPL 4x5 enlargers. We also have the Eric Fischl gallery and two annual photography competitions which feature silver printing at their core.

It is the opinion of the Art staff here that schools offering fine art degrees (bfa, mfa) in photography, require knowledge of darkroom procedures. Commercial degrees on the other hand, require the balance be tilted toward digital, and so we also have two 25 workstation digital labs (Mac based), with large format printers.
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+1...just another reason to LOVE Arizona 😀😀😀
I have my own traditional darkroom at home...I guess now it's an historical landmark...
 
Here in Canada, generally speaking, colleges present diplomas, universities present degrees; colleges provide specific job training, universities are more academic. Sometimes due to historical naming, there are "colleges" within or under a university umbrella.

Universities also offer (professional) degrees that lead to specific carreers such as medicine, law, engineering.
 
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John Rountree said:
We offer a degree in photography, and since we are charged with preparing our students to earn a living, it seems unreasonable to ask them to spend their time in the wet darkroom
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And to think Kodak spent millions to build their new film producing facilities....

I think it is unreasonable to deprive students the chance to learn and spend quality time in a wet darkroom..
 
John Rountree said:
I just received permission from the curriculum committee to change the photography program at the college where I teach to an all digital program. We will be teaching wet darkroom as a historical process. ...
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You can teach the wet darkroom as a historical process, but should not do that without giving the students access to a wet darkroom, or even to just physical examples of the tools used along with some good pictures of actual darkrooms. Not giving the students something to touch, smell, and feel would be like teaching biology without frogs to dissect, or astronomy without a telescope. Bottles of developer, stop, fixer, and photoflow at the very minimum ought to be on hand. Also, a roll of negatives.

Probably the best curriculum plan would be not to mention a wet darkroom at all, or to take a field trip somewhere where they can at least see a real one, and get the smells as well as the sights. Also, turn out the lights so they can (not) see how dark it is, and why it's called a "dark room."

Best of luck with the new program.
 
It has provided some good discussion. First, I teach at McDowell Technical Community College. It is a college as all of our core classes will transfer (intact with grades) to any North Carolina university, so our level of instruction has to be on par with the university courses. I agree with Chris. If we had the students for a four year curriculum I would never consider going all digital. I guess I should have elaborated a little more. Our photography degree program has been here for 25 years. Obviously we have full darkroom facilities, and these are not going away. By teaching wet darkroom as a historical process all students will develop film and make a few prints. Anyone who wishes to pursue wet darkroom further will have access to the darkrooms as long as they are an enrolled student. I also agree that a lot can be learned in the wet darkroom and transferred to Photoshop. But honestly, it is about giving the students the most useful and relevant education in a relatively short time. I should add, students can also take an Independent Study, or Special Projects course that will allow the to work in the wet darkroom and get photography credits.
 
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John Rountree said:
... it is about giving the students the most useful and relevant education in a relatively short time. I should add, students can also take an Independent Study, or Special Projects course that will allow the to work in the wet darkroom and get photography credits.
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PC is a community college as well, with intentions toward transferring to one of the universities here. However we are evolving more and more toward terminal, two year certificates. Our 30 credit Certificate in Digital Photography is very popular. But it still requires one wet course.

For the students "relatively short" means impossibly short - they want to be trained, not educated, because education involves a lot off stuff that won't be directly applicable.

So we train them. I find this unfortunate, and part of the 'dumbing down' of our society.

Fewer students take our more involved elective courses in wet photography. But the numbers of students taking those classes has increased over the last 3 years. I find this hopeful for the art of photography.
 
I recall recent students being 100% unaware of the possibilities of camera-movements and believing totally that every picture in the world can be made with a canikon DSLR. That they were busy wondering why their attempts at the catalog shots weren't really working at f22, for depth of focus, and 'maybe they could photoshop a couple of shots together ?' - when they could have been single exposure with a view-camera and digi-back, was just plain ridiculous. Admittedly this was in Belgium (only joking about the stereotype folks) but still, a lack of awareness of anything except one small subset of tools is not going to help anyone except for Macdonalds-style dumbed-down photography.

I would make some remarks on the reduction of breadth of curricula only saving money, but it wouldn't really be fair to the educators I suppose.
 
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