[Leica] Musings on wet vs. digital darkrooms

[Martin Howard <mvhoward@mac.com>]

When I was living in Columbus, OH, I had a wet darkroom built out of my
bathroom.  I was fortunate enough to have a bathroom with no windows, 
good
ventilation, and a little antechamber which could be sectioned off from 
the
main hall with a dark cloth, where I could put my enlarger.  Now I find
myself in Santa Cruz, in a wonderful location a mere 200m from the 
beach,
but it turns out that when you build a house 200m from the beach, you 
put
windows absolutely everywhere.  While my current bathroom is larger than
some appartments I've stayed in, there are two problems: 1) It is 
difficult
to get dark, without completely rebuilding it -- at least, not without
doing the kinds of modifications that landlords usually frown upon and I
find that landlords invent enough excuses to keep your security deposit 
as
it is, without handing them additional ones.  2) The combination of
temperature, humidity, and the lack of central heating means that my
bathroom is rarely above 12 C.

So, factoring all of these things together, plus the recent sale of an 
R2,
a 25mm Skopar and some other assorted stuff, meant that I decided to go
digital for now.  Ultimately, I'd much rather be a wizard in the wet
darkroom than in a digital one... but I'd also much rather be able to
produce prints of *some* kind than not at all.  So, a $299 film scanner
(Minolta Dimage Dual Scan III) and a $249 printer (Canon i950) and four
weeks later, I find myself thinking about the similarities and 
differences
between wet darkrooms (henceforth just "darkroom") and digital darkrooms
(henceforth just "computer").

One of the greatest aspects of a darkroom is that feeling of magic.  If
you've ever been in a darkroom, you know the feeling when you start 
seeing
the print tones come up in the developer.  As if conjured up by some
invisible genie and secret incantations, aided by metol, images appear 
as
if my magic, from thin air (or rather, from thick solutions).  I know
people who, fifty years after they first saw a print form in the
developer, are as fascinated and as enthralled by this as the first 
time.
And I'm pretty sure that, four decades from now, I will be the same.  No
amount of experience with the phenomenon seems to detract from that 
sense
of wonderment as a white paper suddenly darkens and shows a familiar 
face
or an exotic location.

The computer affords no such experience.  Which, to me, is the biggest
difference between darkrooms and computers.  On the whole, working with
photography on the computer is a more cerebral experience; working with
photography in the darkroom is a more emotional (or visceral) 
experience.
I've found myself thinking "yes, that looks about right" when working in
Photoshop, while in the darkroom, I used to think "yeah, that feels 
about
right".

I think that this comes from the fundamentally different pace of working
in the two media.  On the computer, you're leaping across a pond, from
one stepping stone to another, always with the option of going back one
stone should you take the wrong path.  As you jump, you rest on the new
stone and view your surroundings.  Do they look right?  Are you going
where you want to?  Did you get your feet wet yet?  Can you make that 
next
leap over the intermediate stone, or should you take it stepwise more
slowly?

Working in the computer introduces natural pausing points.  I find 
myself
doing one thing, stopping, and evaluating the outcome before going on.
There are no time constraints.  It takes an almost fixed amount of time 
to
do any one operation (they are for the most part instantaneous) after
which you can then rest indefinately before moving on with the next 
step.
Indeed, sometimes I save a snapshot of the whole process, just by saving
the file, and then pick up the following day where I left off.

It's a staccato dance towards the envisioned result.  One step, pause, 
two
step, pause, etc., a tango with the left hand side of the brain leading 
a
few steps, then stopping, twisting around and looking back, then 
forward,
then another few swirling steps.  A stepwise walkabout across an
unfamiliar landscape, but always one step at the time, and always with 
the
opportunity to stop, and survey the route you took to get here.

The end result is interesting.  Not only do you have the result in the
form of the photograph itself, which, as always, depending upon your 
skill
and willingness to experiment, may or may not look like the envisioned
product, but the process is self-documenting.  With the modern tools
available, each step can be saved separate from the previous and
subsequent ones.  You can go back to the original image, by playing the
sequence in reverse, then forward, and (again) observing how the changes
take place before your eyes.  Or break the sequence and play it out of
order.

Looking back, I realize that I never did this staccato dance in the
darkroom.  The necessity to traverse the (perhaps) unfamiliar landscape
towards the end result still remains, but with each new print, you'd 
start
from the same starting point.  Then, with a plan in mind, in one 
continuous
flow, you'd set off, skipping, running, scrambling across the landscape
until you come to a stop -- a print.  There was no pausing along the 
way,
no stopping and looking back.  Instead of the stepwise hopping, darkroom
work seems to be characterized by a flow of activity that, once 
initiated,
has to pour out in one continuous stream, or you'll never get across the
terrain at all.

I've always felt a parallel (rightly or wrongly) between photography and
music.  When I see a very good photograph, as a print or on the screen, 
I
"hear" music.  Photography to me is all about capturing moods, 
emotions, a
sense of place, the essence of someone's personality, and music has 
often
been used to do the same.  So, for me, it is only natural that the two
complement each other.  Interestingly enough, while on occasion I see
(fuzzy, fleeting, mental) images when listening to music, it's much more
rare.

Stetching the simile to absurdity, I feel that computer-based 
photography
is about timbre, pitch, and harmony.  Darkroom work is about rhythm and
pacing.  Timing is all but unimportant in the computer, but is central 
to
darkroom work.  I cannot imaging how you'd produce prints in a darkroom
without rhythm, timing, and sequence, while in the computer, I find 
myself
inventing strategies that allow to me accomplish (much) the same thing 
by
specifically avoiding them.

So, my conclusions?  I think the main insight is that there is no such
thing as a "digital darkroom".  While you can produce and manipulate
photographic images in both darkrooms and in (on?) computers, and while
you can arrive at more or less the same result, the two experiences are
fundamentally different.

I'm very happy that I have a computer, a film scanner, and an inkjet
printer, because it allows me to close the photographic loop that has 
been
open for too long.  As such, I find myself embarking on photography with
renewed enthusiasm, and a desire to learn more about how I see the world
and the kinds of photographs which I take.  I delight in the ability to
produce prints and give to friends and family, and the simple 
conversation
pieces that a photograph, or a collection of photographs, can be.

But I yearn for the day when I can have a permanent darkroom in a home 
of
my own and can experience that magic taking place in the trays.

M.

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