March 8, 2009

"Digital Photography Is Just A Passing Fad", by Dave Swanson







An Article written by Dave Swanson








"The best memories of my life have been in the darkroom."









Dave Swanson
Art Model Katy T





















" I had my first darkroom in my parents basement when I was not more than eight. I couldn't wait to get home from school and hole up in there. The smell of the chemicals, the magic of the image coming to life before your eyes.

In high school it was the darkroom, not the idiotic football field that really got you girls. The jocks had the dumb ones hanging on their arms. We had a waiting list of ladies that wanted to spend an evening in the darkroom.









Dave Swanson
"Rumpel Has Problems With The Wheel"
Art Model Abigail















My god, without a darkroom where do you hide your scotch bottle ?


And what about our perfect martinis that consist of two drops of slightly used stop bath in place of vermouth ?


Computers are fun, but they will never replace the enjoyment of dogging and burning under an enlarger. And when you have spent all night working to create the perfect print and you see it developing before your eyes, that's a feeling no computer will ever give you.

Happy, content and a bit giddy you walk out to find that the sun has come up while you labored away on your creation. You put a note on the refrigerator to replace the bottle of Baileys you drank while making this master piece and head to bed.


To do away with working with chemicals in the darkroom you might as well cut off a man's... legs."









Dave Swanson
"Evening Flight"
Art Model Jesse








1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nicely written and very sentimental however big mistake in title - digital is in no way passing fad. Actually (if not true today) in few years film photography and darkroom work will be a hobby of few traditionalists and will surely completely disappear from commercial photography. We may not like it, we may even protest, but that is all we can do about it.