Darkroom & Accessories
Since its debut in October 2015, the B&H Photography Podcast has offered weekly conversations with insightful and entertaining guests, on topics most important to the contemporary photographer—from gear and technique to history, science, and art. To commemorate Black History Month, we present to you this compilation of episodes celebrating photographers of color who have appeared on our show.
Photograph "Looking Out" (detail) © Earlie Hudnall Jr., Courtesy PDNB Gallery,
Photographers are formed through myriad forces—formal schooling, technical mastery, or an empathetic connection to the people around them being just a few. This latter circumstance fueled the vision of photographer Clemens Kalischer and was likely seeded by a profound awareness of human nature he picked up as a child, observing his father at work.
Sometimes referred to as the invisible photographer, Kalischer possessed great empathy and a deep interest in the human condition. “He spent so much time with people when he photographed them, he was
The In-Sight Photography Project has provided photographic instruction and camera gear to rural youth in and around Brattleboro, Vermont, since well before the dawn of digital, making it the Grande Dame of Youth Photography not-for-profits. The organization’s pay-what-you-can motto, paired with its four-tier payment system, encourages community support while also insuring that no student is turned away.
For this fourth story in our series, we spoke with In-Sight’s executive director, Victoria Heisler, and program director A. Hanus, about the
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Maria Perez demonstrates how to develop your 35mm black-and-white film at home. She helps you compile a list of all the supplies you will need, shows you the different steps in the developing process, and throws in a few tips and tricks along the way to ensure that your negatives will be well developed. For more exciting DIY videos, click here for BandH.com. Do you have a special setup for developing your film at home? Tell us about in the Comments section!
The term “pixel peeping” might be a product of the digital age, but the concept of critically eyeballing the details of a photograph go way back to the earliest days of photography. Back when film was king, the only way to “zoom in” to see exactly how good your lens-focusing skills were was to view your transparencies and negatives through a loupe.
During the heyday of film photography, the most popular loupes were manufactured by Schneider
While we’re all confined to our homes for the time being, don’t let this time spent indoors and around the home spoil your creativity. And especially for those working photographers and digital gearheads, it might be a good time to slow down and reconnect with the roots of photography. While camera development and the state of imaging in general are all about speed, ease of use, connectivity, and availability, consider spending some time with the fun and more “genuine” side of photography for a bit, and rediscover the simple but magical
Some of the most cherished memories of my photographic education revolve around spending long hours in the darkroom, making prints into the wee hours of the night. While not as commonplace as it once was, if you’re fortunate enough to have a traditional black-and-white darkroom at your school, be sure to make use of it while you still can. Regardless of whether you’re taking an intro black-and-white class or an intensive printing class, one of the keys to becoming adept at black-and-white printing is, quite literally, to print! And print a lot
Like a painter mastering realism before advancing to abstraction, photographers benefit greatly from learning to shoot film before moving to digital.
Stark black-and-white images can swiftly and brutally reveal a weak composition. And shooting with film teaches photographers to be thoughtful about what subjects are worth one of their precious 36 frames. Beginning with black-and-white film helps creates a visually articulate and well-rounded shooter. Which is why many universities have stuck to the practice, despite our entrenchment in a
The photographs of Stephen Salmieri embody the power retained by analogue photography in the digital era. Salmieri has been shooting black-and-white film since the 1960s when he began documenting the streets and inhabitants of New York. His portraiture is as honest as it is diverse, celebrating the characters in his neighborhood and humanizing celebrities shot on assignment.
Above photograph: Coney Island, 1969; Courtesy of the Artist
After a decade of travel and collaboration with his wife and fellow artist, Sydnie Michele, he completed
One of the most intimidating aspects of working with film today is accessibility and availability of resources for processing. With professional labs becoming rarer and rarer in most parts of the world, except for major urban centers, one of the remaining options for the photographer pining to shoot film is to develop one’s own. The good news is, however, that developing film at home is incredibly easy, requires few tools and little space, and gives you superior results and control over what many labs could ever offer.
The Tools You Need
The darkroom. Just thinking of it brings out the most nostalgic of feelings from all photographers, even if you learned in the digital age, and even if you’ve never even set foot in a traditional chemical darkroom. There is something so gratifying about the idea of hand-crafting your photographs from a physical negative, printing on real paper, and watching your images come to life in baths of chemistry. Without waxing too romantic about the whole idea, it is safe to say that even the most cutting-edge digital photographers would still
The rise in popularity of digital photography in recent years has radically changed the way we interact with photographs. Much of this change can be attributed to the transformation of photos from physical objects to pieces of data. Drugstore envelopes and shoeboxes have been replaced by hard drives and, more recently, “cloud” systems, as preferred methods of image storage. Likewise, computer and phone screens have ousted photo albums as the dominant means of sharing family memories and artistic creations alike. Yet, for many, the barrage of
While film photography tends to take a back seat to digital photography nowadays, many photography programs still teach film photography to help you gain a better understanding of how the basic photographic process works. Without computers and an LCD screen to fall back on, shooting with film helps to reinforce technique and make you learn, understand, and trust yourself while shooting.
Film
The most obvious thing someone needs to begin his or her education in film photography is
Today’s digital cameras are capable of awesome imaging performance and they offer an unparalleled combination of convenience, efficiency, and cost effectiveness that has made them the dominant mode of image capture. Nevertheless, shooting black-and-white film, especially in medium format, is a fascinating and worthwhile experience that’s rewarding, fun, and can also go a long way toward making you a more thoughtful and effective digital photographer.