Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Digital or traditional
As England plunged into winter again over the Easter weekend with sleet and snow, I managed to get to my photographic darkroom for more hours than usual, managing to develop a record 28 rolls of film and produce contact sheets for them all. Now I'm ready to go back in a few days time to produce some photographs. Some of these rolls of film have been waiting since last summer as I have recently put preference to other more recent and urgent (interesting) pictures photographed since then. But now I've caught up.
You may well ask why I do not 'go digital' but I can assure you I do occasionally use a digital camera mainly for snaps. Indeed I used it this weekend to produce a portrait of my actress partner, suitable for her portfolio. Photography has moved on so much in the last decade, we now expect to have instant results to a high standard, all at the click of a button. It's so handy.
Much as I appreciate being able to quickly produce this portrait with the help of Adobe Photoshop, after some time of adjusting tones, shadows and refining details ready for publication I felt that I had not made a photograph at all and had just manipulated a few digital pixels on-screen. Yes, it was an image, but for all I wished, I did not feel that I had produced a photograph. Digital imaging still does not grab me yet I know some photographers who are using the latest technology to produce amazing pictures. I still prefer my darkroom.
My mentor and photographic coach, the late Barry Thornton told me a few years ago, "Noel, you've got to move on. Digital is the way forward." He continued, "Just because you can do darkroom work, doesn't mean you should continue. There is just as much fun to be had with the new process. It is just different." I have a huge respect for him having published several important books on the subject and manufactured his own unique chemical developers and demystified many techniques in the traditional methods, he was 'moving on'. But I saw it this way, and still do. I am fortunate to have had excellent training from a master printer in the traditional chemical processes and have reached a level of success with my Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society and exhibited in London more than once. The bottom line is that I much prefer the old process where the human skill is all important right through the process from clicking the camera shutter, the development and then printing of the image, where any stage can be fatal to the end result. It takes skill. I derive a high degree of enjoyment from working with wet chemicals, seeing the image appear as it bathes in the developer under a red light. The end result has a certain hand-made quality and if I have been successful in my endeavours, the image glows with a soft luminosity while also being sharp. The image may not be as crisply sharp as a digital image, but it has a certain softness and to my mind, more like the world I see with my own eyes, that's not entirely razor sharp. I enjoy this 'imperfection'. I do not have the skill in digital although it's likely that I could learn and eventually become proficient.
I hear from many people, as I did from my mentor, "You've got to move on." But I don't see it that way. The bottom line for me is....why do I do it? The answer is, for the enjoyment of producing fine images. Simple. Do I enjoy using the old processes in my endeavour? Absolutely. So I continue. There is no 'musts' or 'must nots'. While traditional photographic papers and chemicals exist, I shall continue using them, and if they eventually cease to be produced, then I shall probably stop doing 'serious' photography.
I hope you had as good an Easter Weekend as I did. Next weekend I hope to get out into some sun, if there is some, and take a few more pictures,.....with a mechanical click. :-)
PS. I'll post a photograph from my recent endeavours shortly.
