Another one bites the dust

Learning darkroom technique is equal to learning to run/drive a horse and wagon..... And I have learned to drive a horse and wagon, if YOU have not you should not drive a car.

Yes, in the real world you do not need to know how to use a horse......
 
Got to love it, had to change my Depends after reading that. Three cheers for Stewie my hero.

Bob
 
In my day , Design Courses were full of Drawing Boards - I just picked up an old drawing set for £3 at a Boot Fair - with those compasses needing ink added .
Now it's computer based throughout , though I have been asked how to set up perspective from some younger Designers .
The sole concern I have is that can these ' kids ' just sketch an idea for a client when either a presentation goes wrong [ often still on mounting boards , but increasingly projected ] can they rescue it with some quick sketches ?

I have no issue with the old ways being swept away , so why should it be otherwise for Photography students ?

dee
 
I just finished a community college photography course. Film only. Wet darkroom. It took me three years on a waiting list to get in. My experience is not unusual. And the focus of the photography department is not teaching budding wedding photographers, but rather fine art photographers. There is a whole lot of craft that goes into a quality print. As a result, that print can command a decent asking price on a gallery wall.

There is a graphic art class for digital photography. That one is easy to get into. I would imagine that any program that cannot sustain a film photography course has issues not related to technology. And it would appear that in this case it might have something to do with the staff.

It would appear the OP works for a technical school, not a degree program college.
 
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Has to be digital in a 2-year degree, which are typically geared toward employment. Also, there is the expense for the school to maintain additional labs, chemistry, paper, film etc. Expensive. BFA, MFA - another matter, as students should be able to work in a variety of medium at this level.
 
NickTrop said:
Has to be digital in a 2-year degree, which are typically geared toward employment. Also, there is the expense for the school to maintain additional labs, chemistry, paper, film etc. Expensive. BFA, MFA - another matter, as students should be able to work in a variety of medium at this level.
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I agree with this. We can't deny the relevance and practicality of digital technology as a means to pursue a career in photography in today's world. So it is fair to have to enroll into a Fine Art degree to get exposure to "traditional media."

What bugs me the most in all these discussions is the lack of answer to the question "Why bother?"

Why would any student today would want to bother learning about film photography (let alone other more arcane processes)?

We as a society (photography or in general) do not give them any reasons at all. Yet quite a few people switched from digital to film as their preferred medium despite of this. So the reasons must be there.

Therefore I urge those of you who are privileged to have a say in creating a new curriculum to capture those reasons. Maybe by emphasizing the motivational and appreciative aspects of traditional media and processes, not just the technical and/or historical ones.

Think about it, existing older curricula do not have those because back then, students come in already knowing why they have to know how to handle film if they want to study photography.

Today, no longer true.
 
It is all about credentials!

It is all about credentials!

FrankS said:
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.
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I really feel for anyone in college these days. To get a job they need specific skills and training, to keep a job they will need to diversify and become very flexible. A tough row to hoe on my opinion. :(

I agree that colleges that do not teach film and wet-darkroom techniques are short changing their students, but these days, a degree in the latest technology is the key to gainful employment. It is a false idea, but for the time it is the one that will get a newbie college graduate a job.

I support this statement with my personal experience, after putting in more than 29 years as a Tool and Die Maker with a large multi-national corporation, in 2003 they "downsized" me out the door. While searching for new employment, I found that there is a conflict of interests in the US in the hiring of skilled employees. Two of the Human Resource Managers that I interviewed with actually cried because they wanted my experience, but could not hire me because the "big boys up stairs" only wanted the latest and greatest of credentials. I have a BS plus 32 hours towards a Master's degree and more than 30 years of experience, not good enough for today's job market. :bang:
 
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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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John,

I'm not trying to stir someting up but curious as to whather anyone of your teachers or you have actually made a living as a photographer. I don't mean played at it for a year and then taught I mean really made a living and worked in the real world for ten years or more and what kind of work have they done? Seems like very few teachers have actually worked in their field for any period of time.
 
Papa Smurf said:
I really feel for anyone in college these days. To get a job they need specific skills and training, to keep a job they will need to diversify and become very flexible. A tough row to hoe on my opinion. :(

I agree that colleges that do not teach film and wet-darkroom techniques are short changing their students, but these days, a degree in the latest technology is the key to gainful employment. It is a false idea, but for the time it is the one that will get a newbie college graduate a job.

I support this statement with my personal experience, after putting in more than 29 years as a Tool and Die Maker with a large multi-national corporation, in 2003 they "downsized" me out the door. While searching for new employment, I found that there is a conflict of interests in the US in the hiring of skilled employees. Two of the Human Resource Managers that I interviewed with actually cried because they wanted my experience, but could not hire me because the "big boys up stairs" only wanted the latest and greatest of credentials. I have a BS plus 32 hours towards a Master's degree and more than 30 years of experience, not good enough for today's job market. :bang:
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Wow. I've known several tool & Die makers, including one of my uncles, and none of then had a bachelors degree. I can't imagine what a college degree would bring to a job like that which is usually learned through apprenticeship. My uncle just got a job because the hiring manager was a machinist who had been one of my uncle's apprentices 20 years ago!
 
x-ray said:
... I'm not trying to stir someting up but curious as to whather anyone of your teachers or you have actually made a living as a photographer. I don't mean played at it for a year and then taught I mean really made a living and worked in the real world for ten years or more and what kind of work have they done? Seems like very few teachers have actually worked in their field for any period of time.
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Excuse me!?

At PC, all of our art professors and instructors are working artists, either in commercial jobs or doing creative work with gallery shows, etc. Please do not perpetuate the cliche "ivory tower" notion.
 
Likewise, it's harder and harder to find a design course which teaches the fundamental basics of typography through "historical processes" - i.e. hand-drawn lettering and non-digital typesetting. I personally think it's valuable to learn these things (and I get excited when someone much younger shares my point of view on this), but forcing them to learn it within the context of "getting a job" isn't really necessary, as most employers and clients are interested in the sausage (so to speak) and not how the sausage is made.
 
I asked the question how may professors have real world work experience because of photographers like Walker Evans who taught photography in the university environment. Evans as mentioned taught at Yale in later years but investigating his educational background he had only an honorary degree. Most of his life was involved with practical work and not the academic world. Are there any non college grads working as professors at Yale or any other university today? Not likely. Who could better teach photography, a person that's spent most of their life in a class room or a person like Walker Evans who's spent their entire life doing not just talking about it?

When I have students come to my studio looking for a job and flaunting their degree I tell them I will not hold their education against them. It's all about what you can produce not where you went to school. I've seen very few graduated with the skills to work and make a living. Exceptions are schools like Brooks and USC's film department.

If you're charged with the responsibility of preparing students to go into the world and work then you need to know what's ahead in the real world. The cost of education is too high today to not prepare them for getting a job or at least being able to earn enough money to pay their student loans back. If it requires teaching like a vocational school then that's what it takes to prepare students for the real world. I know of only a very few practicing photographers that have photo or art degrees. the same is true of art directors that I've worked with over the years. The majority learned on the job under a master just as I did. No college could have prepared me better than the education I received while apprenticing under a master for a year and a half.

Working as a commercial photographer for over four decades I can honestly say the current generation of art director / designer and photographer are the least prepared to work in the real world. My wife who was a creative director for a retail clothing chain for twenty one years agrees that the current bread reflects a failure of the educational system to prepare students for the work environment. I've discussed this with a number of friends that are now retired from the design and photo world and they agree as well.
 
The idea that college prepares one for a job is flawed to start with. College, as far as I can tell, presents a situation in which students have an opportunity to learn to think for themselves.
 
Evans was an excellent photographer gifted in capturing the moment and obviously a good teacher. My point in the above is many great artists that would make excellent teachers and contribute greatly to the educational system are overlooked because they do not have the degree. So many have so much to contribute. Why are educational institutions so locked into the idea that you have nothing to contribute without the papers? It's the loss of every student who could have learned from a master but was stuck with an instructor who has no real world experience.

In the opening post I'm glad to see digital being taught. Digital is the real world now and film is the art world. I certainly hope film stays but if you're teachin for students to get jobs then digital is the route.
 
Ah yes, the credentials issue. Well, here are mine... I have never taken a course in photography. I am completely self-taught. For about a decade I worked for newspapers in the Chicago area, the last being the Copley newspaper chain. I also did some free-lance work around the Chicago suburbs. I moved to North Carolina to teach at a 4 year liberal arts college where I merged courses in photography and sociology. I was instrumental in establishing the Appalachian Photographic Archive at Mars Hill College. I have been a printer for Rob Amberg (Ray with your work in eastern Tennessee, I hope you are familiar with Rob's work) for many years. (www.robamberg.com) I continue to photograph and show my work regularly in galleries. I did eventually get a degree in Sociology and I have gone back to become a certified teacher in North Carolina. As for the other teacher in the program. He has a Masters in Photography, he still operates his own studio, and was previously a photographer and then promoted to Photography Editor for the daily newspaper in Macon, Georgia. You tell me, are we qualified to teach? Oh yeah, please don't think our school or courses are geared to turn out wedding photographers. Also, are some of you suggesting that rigor in our courses is less than in a course offered in a four year institution? Finally, please read my second post in this thread, no one is being deprived of learning and/or pursuing wet darkroom photography. But, indeed our technical emphasis is changing to keep up with the changes in our society.
 
Our local state university is going all-digital. With the darkrooms gone, there are a few empty rooms with plumbing and one even has a ceiling high enough for a Saltzman 8x10" enlarger. I proposed that I build a special darkroom for historical purposes, including the restored Saltzman enlarger with the best of lenses - free. The department Chair almost went ballistic - really hates photography or something. Very strange because somehow she got a PhD in photography without making pictures. Oh, wait. Of course one need not actually practice the field for a PhD. Silly me.

Regarding outcomes of higher education, one has to wait and look back after several years, and not just to immediate post-graduation employment figures. After years you find what impact was made. It is enlightening to find that liberal arts students trained in critical thinking are most flexible, generally speaking, and better at moving up and changing professions when they want to.
 
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John Rountree said:
[...] For about a decade I worked for newspapers in the Chicago area, the last being the Copley newspaper chain. [...]
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Moi - All daily newspapers. Last work was with Field Enterprises (Sun Times, Daily News, Day Publications), Paddock Publications (Downers Grove), Williams Press (Chicago Heights & Tinley Park). But that was so long ago. I'm sure they are extinct by now. Did Chicago magazines later. Then into academe where I have been for the past 30 years - academe where it is eternally young, completely removed from reality. Art department will have nothing to do with photography, journalism department will not have their photo students getting wet, and nobody wants to know what tilts and swings are outside of a playground.

The bright side of digital everything? It has completely liberated what it thinks it has replaced. That's good for now.
 
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