Is silver-halide printing over?

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robertdfeinman

Robert Feinman
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I decided to sell one of my (two) enlargers the other day. I haven't made any prints in a few years and I thought someone might be interested in trying out conventional photography.

I priced it pretty low and also offered to toss in a few darkroom items so that a buyer could get started without needing to add much more than some consumable items.

I used the local Craig's list to post the item. After three days - not one expression of interest. A check on ebay shows many enlargers not getting a single bid either.

It just feels funny to see an entire branch of technology, which has existed for about 150 years, vanish in just a few years. I don't feel the same way about this as I did when 78's and LP's vanished and were replaced by CD's. Neither had been around that long and the replacement was essentially equivalent. I was a bit upset when various film formats and stocks were discontinued, but one could adapt. For example I used to shoot 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 sheet, so I switched to roll or cut down 4x5. When Kodak discontinued sheet IR I stopped shooting IR altogether.

Anyone collect buggy whips?
 
Hardly anyone under 30 has hobbies like in the past- watercolors, photography, etc. It is a digital age where images are not objects any longer. Artists continue to work in silver and will for a long time.
 
I don't whip buggies, but I do print on silver based paper still. I got started 4 or 5 years ago when I was given a nearly complete darkroom, and tried it just because I could! It wasn't a fluke, a few months later I picked up an identical enlarger with 2 EL Nikkor lenses for the price of one of the lenses on CraigsList; All I really wanted was a longer lens, but spare parts didn't hurt!
I guess my point is that the transition has been happening for longer than just a couple of years, that there was already a surplus of darkroom equipment on the market when inkjet printing, digital image sharing, and inkjet were just beginning to get good and/ or popular.
On the other hand I don't actually think wet printing is quite dead yet. People who would have been less serious about it a few years ago and just did it because that was how you made viewable images have jumped ship. Many artsy people have too, maybe even most. Commercial photography, what little of it has survived, I don't see using wet printing as it is slow and difficult. So that leaves a huge surplus of highly durable equipment looking for a home!
I feel sorry for people who have invested a lot of money in it, but sometimes that is how it goes.
 
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I agree - I think the printing aspect of film photography is taking a huge dump. I think the most common workflow method using film nowadays involves developing the rolls/sheets in the traditional fashion and then scanning them onto the computer. The traditional printing process seems to have been left behind. On the brighter side of things if you are interested in traditional printing there is no better time than now to pick up good equipment for a song (I just picked up a couple of salthill easels for a very good price!).

Who knows - maybe 10 years down the road it will become popular again (although by then we might all be stuck coating our own papers :()
 
I started printing about 40 years ago when I first married. I still print in my makeshift darkroom in the Utility room. I also play guitar. I don't want my computer (read work) to get between me and the things I love to do, photography and music, so I do them both the way I did in '68 albeit better now (I think.) I love the peace and quiet of the darkroom. I like that it is slow. I guess it's the handmade quality I like .
Vic
 
Let's not forget that LPs are still widely in use. This is just one example of how analogue technology still has a place in today's world.

There are still many well-known photographers doing wet printing - Paolo Roversi and Sarah Moon are just two respectable examples.

As sepiareverb said, silver printing will be around for a long time, but perhaps not in as wide a circle as it once was. I know I won't be going back to digital/inkjet processes any time soon...
 
[sepiareverb]Hardly anyone under 30 has hobbies like in the past- watercolors, photography, etc. It is a digital age where images are not objects any longer.

Unfortunately this may be true. It seems that anything requiring a level of skill greater than that which can be learned in a dozen hours just isn't attractive any more, for the average 15-25 year old. Possibly I am getting old and curmudgeonly though ?

On the other hand, the quality of results - and the volume of good quality results - may be the same as ever, if the digital camera is mostly used as a replacement for the Instamatic. Maybe the wet-collodion users decried the loss of their skills when dry-plates appeared ?

It is certainly inconvenient though, as it gets slightly harder to find the materials that we like to use. Only "slightly harder" because improvements in communications and commerce have made it possible for better distribution of products by the specialist manufacturers. As usual, swings and roundabouts...
 
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Im building my darkroom currently! Just picked up a 6ft fiberglass sink and stand in great shape for FREE. Person I got it from has lots of darkroom stuff he would just give away if I find I need it. He has a Thomas safelight I am going to buy for just $50 and it's like brand new. He's gone all digital of course. I need the escape so I'll stay with the darkroom. Bob, I promise Im going to make you that fence print yet.
 
I scan now. Probably because I don't have a "dark room" but a "dark area" in my basement that I can make light-tight enough to make prints but only at night. If I had a true darkroom it would be different but the way I do it now takes too much time to set-up and break down. A wet print that's "nailed" looks better than an inkjet. However, you can do so much with PS and Lightroom, and with inexpensive printers that can do black and white, and good matte or pearl papers out, even on my cheap inkjet set-up, results ain't too shabby compared to a wet print. Especially medium format.
 
For me I guess it's not which is better or easier or faster, it's the experience of closing that darkroom door and switching on my enlarger, mixing a batch of chemicals and losing track of time that I just prefer. And there is nothing like holding a wet fiber print in your hands and getting that "I nailed this one" experience.
 
I love working in a darkroom but the thing I have noticed, and what has ultimately driven me to digital output, is that the prices of raw materials have gone up a lot in the last 5 years. Chemicals, paper, and film all cost more and this is where traditional process is going to get tripped up i think. I think that if you take the collective cost increases in wet processes you will get to a point where it just doesn't make sense financially for most of us to print wet process anymore. There will always be someone printing fiber base silver but they will be the people who regularly sell prints at $3000+. My guess is the point when things get REALLY expensive is about 8-10 years off. When that happens even schools like RIT will move away from silver because of the cost, and learning how to print traditional processes will be taught in a class much like platinum/palladium printing is now. In other words, Silver dies not when it's manufacture ceases but when the cost of printing becomes to great to get new photographers to take up the art. If you need an example look at brass casting, It was an industry tied to an art. Those who knew how to pour brass had a job where ever they went because every large town had a brasserie, and so many artists who produced some of the greatest sculpture of the 19th and 20th century also had a means to support themselves. Technology, in this case plastics, supplanted the economic need for brass casting. because of decreased demand the raw inputs to the process went up in cost and you now have a situation today where this art form is about to be lost because there are less than 100 people in the world who know both the technical and artistic side of things.
 
I'm still printing on silver and even making albumen prints, which fell out of common use around 1900.

I have 2x3" sheet film holders and I use them. Films I have on hand are Efke PL100 and the discontinued Fortepan 200 and 400. HP5+ is a stock item in that size, and FP4+ has been cut recently in 2x3" as part of the annual special order for custom sizes. I think the other Efke and Foma films are available in that size as well.

I've bought new LPs in recent weeks (the most recent was Dengue Fever's _Venus on Earth_).

I have no use for buggy whips, but they seem to be in plentiful supply, and they're not cheap--

http://www.kee-port.com/drivingwhips.htm

http://www.drivingessentials.com/Fiberglass_Whips.htm

http://www.smuckersharness.com/pg65.html

http://www.bennington.co.uk/carriages/driving-accessories.htm

http://www.usg-reitsport.de/start/i...0.0.0.0.0.0.0&CAT_ID=86&pixchecked=1&pix=1024
 
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Cds replacing LPs? Check sales trends. CD sales are down. LP sales are growing.

Were bicycles replaced by automobiles? Not hardly. Were wooden boats replaced by fiberglass? Not very likely.

March was very good to me. I collected two enlargers and enough extras to set up 2 darkrooms. Silver printing isn't dying for me. I hope. Paper choices may be more of a problem than film. I'll keep doing it as long as I can.

There is an aesthetic appeal for anything made entirely by hand. In my case, that's photographs. For others, it's pottery, woodworking, etc.
 
Although I am sitting in front of the pc now, and do so all week at work, I don't like it that much. I bought my darkroom gear decades ago, except for a De Vere that I recently added secondhand, so there is no cost attached apart from materials - and to make digital prints I would have similar (or slightly higher) material costs plus a big (and recurring) cost to buy the printer etc. Not to mention a year or so learning what I don't currently need to know. The wet darkroom is effectively both cheaper and more convenient for me.

I find the negative (nice pun...) silver-bashing in digital-based retail outlets these days to be the main reason that few newcomers will consider it. Apparently, everything silver-based is lethal and environmentally unfriendly, according to salesmen trying to sell digital gear - this is based on only two overheard conversations in shops, though it is also the general perception among the public at large.
 
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If I ever go to large format, I'll likely wet print. For the volume of good printable negatives I get lately, it just wouldn't make sense to do it for 35mm, or even 120.

I needed to make about 100 assorted prints in a hurry last week, ended up using a Kodak printing kiosk that spat out the prints as I sat there-quality was acceptable for purpose, too. Not as cheap as it could be, but still cheaper than my own printer.
 
OK, how about made entirely without the use of a computer? Old lenses. Old cameras. Hand loaded bulk film. Delevoped by me. Printed by me. Dodged by hand & eye. Burned by hand and eye. Washed by hand.

You got me-manufacturers probably use computers to produce the raw materials I buy.

End of the day: I can hold a negative in one hand and the print in the other. Both will be around for Y2.1K. How many digital images have already been lost to gremlins and inadequate back up procedures?

Besides. We all have a choice. I choose silver based photography. Y'all pick anything that floats your boat.
 
Surprised no one has asked this yet, but - do you still have the items for sale? And if so what are the details?
 
Hey dont lose heart. I work in a repair/shop and we sell enlargers on a regular basis (dont send me yours we are in Seattle!)
 
Robert, I might've be interested in those enlargers if I wasn't on the west coast to your east, but I'm considered a little crazy for what I fling at photography with it not earning me a cent.

One has to step back and consider darkroom work in a practical light and not as something you enjoy. Looked at that way, a darkroom is a considerable investment of time, resources and space. Most casual and professional photographers aren't willing to devote all that and really, why would they? One of the basic tenants of technology is that it refines our tools so we can do things more quickly and easily.

For most photographers, the darkroom is an extra burden, not a pleasurable hobby, and they can't be blamed for that. A darkroom is a heavy price to pay for the final miles of quality that can be had in a wet print vs digital. I've never done darkroom work before and while I'm a little willing now, I have no suitable room. That alone is a deal killer. The cost of my computer doesn't come close to what it'd cost to get myself the space and build a suitable room.
 
I'm "just" a beginner and recently bought an enlager to do silver-halide printing myself as a new hobby after taking a photo class.

And, hey, I'm 24. :D
 
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