Some of today's film purists look at digital photography as an unnecessary evil. Is it an unfair advantage that the digital photographer can take a photograph, upload it to their computer, do a little image editing, then have a finished product ready to present to a client (or a personal framed print, suitable for hanging), all in a matter of a couple of hours or less? You bet it's unfair, and that's what makes our hobby/obsession/profession great! This is called capitalizing on available technology, and if you're still one of those that haven't embraced the tools that are available today, then shame on you! In no way does this mean that film photographers should ditch their 35mm cameras and darkrooms. Quite frankly, I'm still one of those that really enjoys taking my Pentax K1000 out with a couple of rolls of black and white film, and then processing and printing in my own darkroom built into a little corner of available attic space in my house. Instead, this article's intention is to show the similarities between our digital darkroom/digital world, and the traditional film and darkroom photographer's workflow.

Let me preface this by saying I'm somewhat educated and experienced with both film and digital, for more years than I actually care to admit to. My days with film and processing began somewhere around the Jimmy Carter era, in a small town Texas junior high school. In a little corner of the school's library was a room where magical things happened. A student could take a roll of black and white film in and walk out with 5 x 7 glossy prints, all within the same afternoon. The best part was that this was considered a science class, and all you had to do was sign up! First off, I was always intrigued with photography, then to find out that I could substitute a boring physical science class for a photography class…where do I sign up? The rest is history. I was obsessed with photography, both behind the camera and in the darkroom. For Christmas that year, I got a Vivitar 220/SL 35mm SLR camera from my parents, and with some of the extra Christmas money I got from relatives, bought everything I needed for my own darkroom. My parent's bathroom was officially mine on weekends, with a piece of cardboard stuck in the window to block the light, and my enlarger, chemical trays, print washer and dryer placed on the bathroom counter for my official darkroom. I spent so much time in there that my fingers began to turn yellow from the Kodak Dektol developer that my hands lived in for 8 hours a day.

After taking and printing a couple of hundred shots of the family pets, siblings, and whatever else I could find within my allowed boundaries, I got bored. One day I started experimenting with double exposures, perspectives, etc., both in-camera and in the darkroom. I put the dog's head on the cat's body, made my older brother look 300 lbs., and double exposed a shot of a fire in the fireplace on top of a shot of my parent's house (which my superstitious dad quickly tore up and threw away), among others. I learned lots of techniques to manipulate photographs from books, and some I invented myself. This was fun and some of the results were pretty amazing, even for an early teen working in a makeshift darkroom.

I stayed involved in photography throughout my high school years, and was on both the photography and yearbook staff. After high school and before a short-lived single semester in college, I got a job working at a professional photo lab in Houston. Texas. This company handled quite a few well-known architectural photographers from around the area, and I thought their work was amazing! The more I worked with them, the more I started to realize that while they were very good at what they did, lots of the credit should be going to the photo lab staff, including myself. We made these guys images look great, and they knew it. It was a common process to correct a perspective problem (pin-cushion, barrel distortion, etc.) by tilting an enlarger head a few degrees so that everything looked correct. We also not only corrected color, but changed it as well with filtration, giving many cold interior shots a warm look by dialing in some extra yellow and magenta filter corrections. The ultimate one day was seeing a shot of a brand new building on the Houston skyline that wasn't even built yet. Where did this come from? I drove by this view 5 days a week and I've never seen this building! Turns out this was a model that the photographer got from the architect, carefully placed it in a vacant lot in front of the skyline, then simulated the lighting and some other details and abracadabra…there was a brand new building in Houston! These photos were amazing. Unless you knew this was a model, you would swear a new building must have been built overnight. As much on-site and in-camera work that was involved in these photographs, the lab pros were still asked to help perform some of the magic before the shots were sent to the client.

Much of the work performed in the darkroom is similar to what we do today in Photoshop. We cloned in trees that didn't exist, removed power lines that distracted from the shot, enhanced colors that were bland, and if we couldn't do it in the darkroom it was sent to the lab's airbrush specialist. This person who was definitely an artist and highly skilled in what she did, also took ordinary images and made them extraordinary. One of her specialties was taking old photos that had been bent, folded, and manipulated, and airbrushed everything back to perfection. This photo was then copied using a 4x5 slide camera, and an internegative was produced. This "i-neg" was then used to print new copies that looked better than the original on the day it was shot. While we also did many "straight out of the camera" prints, much of the work that was done was enhanced beyond what was considered natural. This varied by degree, from subtle changes to complete photo makeovers, depending on the request from the client. These images were not simply to hang on someone's wall for viewing pleasure; these were used in magazines, advertising layouts, billboards, etc., with many photographers winning awards from them, not to mention making more money from one photograph than some were making in a year.

So you see, digital photography and image processing is not a whole lot different from how things were done 25 years ago. Sure there are some extreme cases that are obviously not natural…some even beyond grotesque! But that doesn't mean digital is not "natural". Beautiful photographs have had extra help since the invention of the Kodak Brownie. The difference is that today we don't have to have a professional photo lab at our disposal, nor do we have to wait a week to see our results. The images are instant, as is the gratification.

"Great Photos Are Made, Not Taken". - Ansel Adams

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