I have never owned a digital camera but until last week my printing was all done by whomever happened to be at the local minilab the day I dropped off my film. I then scanned the 4x6 prints they honored me with and tried to crop and adjust them into something I liked. Most of the time they would crop an essential element of the image or ruin the balance. I always felt that Photoshop manipulation was somehow cheating. I mean you can make an image into anything you want. Logically though, I know that its just another set of tools like any other medium but it just don't sit right with me. Maybe its too easy, fast and clean. Since I have never sold a print or made any money at all with photography, I felt my negatives could just be thrown into a closet (some without sleeves stuffed into regular postal envelopes) and nobody would care right? Well last week I began printing some of my B&W negatives as 8x10 prints and I discovered who cares about my negatives. Me! Almost all the ones I printed had scratches and some were just horribly spotted. I guess I can rewash them but how do you dry 4 shot strips of negatives? Where do you put the clip? So anyway, in case anyone else out there feels that their negatives are expendable (could there be anyone else as twisted as I), I would rethink that idea. Six months ago I was convinced I would never have a darkroom. I still don't but I've got the equipment and carpet samples blocking light from the window. I spent a week struggling with the basics of dodging and burning and filtering VC paper and I've got to say that the satisfaction from clicking a mouse in Photoshop doesn't come close to the satisfaction from creating a print in the darkroom. Those over/under exposed, splotched, scratched, water spotted mistakes I produced are my children. Well, I cut one of them up to make a mask for another print but who's to say I wouldn't do that with my biological kids too if say, their little toe would make a good mask? I mean really, who uses their little toe for anything other than a corn holder? So cherish those negatives if your equipment can produce them. Remember that computers are for email and leave the photos to the darkroom. Greg Fraser
