They Can Coexist

There is much debate about which is better: film or digital? I have always been in the group that loves both! I appreciate aspects from both the traditional film medium as well as the digital. I love for my students to start out in the darkroom and with fully manual cameras because I feel they learn to rely more on their knowledge of manipulating the camera, exposure, and darkroom techniques to go after their desired image. And, most of what they learn with traditional photography applies to the digital medium. Of course, we all love the immediacy of the digital cameras. I say, why not use them both! In graduate school I started using the aspects I liked about each to create a single image. I love exposing with film, then taking it into the digital darkroom to manipulate. I recently purchased a Canon 5D and I felt the full frame sensor allowed me to explore that way of working in reverse. I have been experimenting with digital paper negatives, although they were scans from negatives made into a digital negative. I have reversed it a bit by using images I exposed using the 5D. I bring the image(s) into Photoshop to manipulate, then create a negative (invert it), bring down the contrast (when you contact print it increases the contrast), then print it onto thin inkjet paper to contact print as a negative in the darkroom. Because I enjoy both process I have found great interest in learning ways to combine the two. You really can bring the best of both worlds together! Here are my digital negatives with their darkroom prints. I lost some detail through the scanning process.

(I am trying to find the right image to start exploring the bromoil process…that will be interesting) You can see the first digital image in color in an earlier post.