Harvey Wang, From Darkroom to Daylight

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 Post subject: Harvey Wang, From Darkroom to Daylight
Unread postPosted: Sun May 24, 2015 11:49 am 
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I just finished a very interesting book by Harvey Wang, entitled "From Darkroom to Daylight," edited by Amy Brost and Edmund Carson, published 2015 by Daylight Books (http://www.daylightbooks.org). It is hardcover, 175 pages. Mr. Wang examines - through interviews with over 40 photographers and others engaged with both film and digital technology and art - the shift from film to digital photography. His interviewees discuss, with frankness, their reasons for preferring one technology or another and their thoughts on the future of both. Some of the interviewees speak passionately about shooting, developing and printing film, and also older technologies including wet plate collodion. Mr. Wang's beautiful black & white portraits of each interviewee are included.

The book, which was a Kickstarter project, is priced at $31.21 on Amazon. That is a pre-publication price; Amazon says the book will be released June 23. I purchased a copy at the Leica Store LA several days ago.


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Last edited by James Lehrer on Sun May 06, 2018 5:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Harvey Wang's "From Darkroom to Daylight"
Unread postPosted: Sun May 24, 2015 2:08 pm 
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Thanks for the info James. Sounds like a good read.

I've just bought a digital SLR ... mainly to copy my old slides / negs and have obviously used it for a few pics too.

It's interesting to note my different 'mindset' when I switch from one medium to the other.

I have room in my life for both, but my 'passion' is with film.


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 Post subject: Re: Harvey Wang's "From Darkroom to Daylight"
Unread postPosted: Sun May 24, 2015 6:11 pm 
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A point repeated by several of the film-oriented photographers in the book is that there is a certain discipline in knowing that they only have 24 or 36 frames on a roll of 35mm film. They suggest that the relatively large number of images that can be made on digital media may encourage more shooting with less deliberation about each image.

I shot 35mm film in a M4-P for years, and I certainly tended to nurse each roll along, taking more time with each shot. I thought I might "lose focus" with the switch to digital, but I still tend to shoot relatively few frames. That could mean I'm still living on analog time, but its also possible that the somewhat limited buffering capacity of my M9 and M-E makes me reluctant to shoot lots of images in rapid sequence.

Do you do your own developing? Printing?


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 Post subject: Re: Harvey Wang's "From Darkroom to Daylight"
Unread postPosted: Mon May 25, 2015 2:45 am 
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With B/W I presently develop the film and then scan.

I'm now going to try using a slide/neg copier on front of the DSLR as I need a faster option for my many thousands of negs.

We moved house a few years ago to make room for an expanding family, and sadly I lost my darkroom in the process. I still have all the gear and would like to get back to wet printing but finding the time to build a darkroom in the loft is my biggest hurdle.

With colour, I take my films to Boots the chemist. If I want enlargements I send negs to a professional lab who still print on light sensitive archival paper, using a laser enlarger.

Incidentally, I got 28 'good' shots out of my last roll of colour.(36exp) ...M2.

One thing I do like very much with digital, is the ability to shoot in very low light without a flash. I was unofficial photographer at a friends surprise party recently and got some shots that would have been next to impossible with film.


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 Post subject: Re: Harvey Wang's "From Darkroom to Daylight"
Unread postPosted: Mon May 25, 2015 12:47 pm 
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I did my own B&W developing and printing back in the 70's, when I worked through college doing freelance photography and shooting for a short-lived local football tabloid called the "[Los Angeles] Rams Football News." I shot lots of Tri-X, always at 400 "ASA" and developed it in Kodak D-76 (1:1), and printed on Agfa Brovira (usually 8x10 or 11x14 inches, my converted bathroom was too small to handle 16x20). If I needed lots of B&W prints, I sometimes used a nearby professional lab called "La Peer Lab." I rarely shot color, but when I did I had it developed and printed by another neighborhood pro lab called "Gibbons Color Laboratories." The folks in those shops were great, and helped me learn more about exposing better negatives, in order to give them more to work with. They closed their doors many years ago, alas! :cry:

After I started practicing law I didn't have time to develop or print, so I used a pro lab in Hollywood called Silverlab. Their printers were terrific, and often made my photos much better than I anticipated. I wish I'd taken a day or two off, just to stand in their darkroom and watch them dodge and burn (assuming they would have allowed me). I had switched to Ilford HP-5 by then, in part because I didn't care for Kodak T-Max, which for a while was touted as a replacement for Tri-X.

You are so right about digital's advantage in low-light situations. I've never cared for flash: I don't care for the resulting images, and it doesn't suit my preferred candid approach.


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