Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Okay, I've seen some posts go by on this but I can't resist putting in my two cents: To the person who compared darkrooms to slide rules: I grew up in the 70s just as calculators were displacing slide rules, and I would have dearly loved to have had more of a taste of that old technology. No one ever taught me how to use one and it's certainly a regret of mine. (To those who saw the movie "Apollo 13": it was certainly a "period piece" in that both heavy smoking and slide rules were featured in Mission Control!) Anyway, traditional photography is to me a piece of technological *AND* artistic heritage which for a child has the significance, say, of painting with oils or setting type with your own printing press: that kind of getting-your-hands-messy creativity for which computers are a ghostly substitute. I didn't grow up with a darkroom at home, but my dad did a few things for me, such as introducing me to pinhole cameras and a brownie which he owned and used as a child. Even as a 10 year old, I could appreciate the nostalgia of loading up rollfilm into a bakelite camera!! Finally, if you happen to think that wet darkrooms are destined for the rubbish heap of history, then I should think that is EVEN MORE an incentive for you to expose your child to this technique. To the person who said that you should nudge your child towards the future: who says that parenthood is a kind of vocational training? I hope to pass on to my children the best things I know about in life. The best art, the best literature, the best music. Given our societal obsession with computers, I rest easy knowing that my children will easily out-learn anything I happen to know about computers. I'll stop now before I really get carried away. :-) Thanks for your patience. Byron.