When I begin a course in Introduction to Photography, I’m always struck by how little my students understand about film/chemical process photography. I don’t need to tell readers of this blog that digital photography – and digital images – have become so common-place and accessible, that the term “photographer” has lost meaning and relevance. So often, students are so used to the ease and the throw-away aspects of shooting digital photography, that they are both mystified and amazed at how different film photography is from their previous experience with digital images.
I introduce students to photography by using film because I feel it has a uniqueness and richness that digital photography does not have. Similar to my reaction to pulling a print from an etched copper plate, I still am personally still enthralled when I expose and print contact sheets, expose and make prints from a captured moment in time on a sliver of plastic. The process is still magical to me, and it also re-enforces and encourages both myself and my students to become more sensitive to the media and to the possibilities of that media. I have discovered that students who are accustomed to using Photoshop to manipulate images on the computer, become more sensitive to the decisions they are making when making a photographic image – both when shooting and when working in the darkroom. Plus, I still see that same amazement when they shoot and process their first roll of film, and make a perfect exposed print in the darkroom. Teaching them to manipulate the camera – simply by using focus, aperture settings and shutter speed – gives them yet another tool to explore their ideas with. It empowers them with an increased technical knowledge, and access to yet another media.
I say this not as a rebuttal of those that are photographers that use digital photography – I count myself among them. I just think that introducing photography in this way to my students opens up new possibilities to them, as well as it gives them a greater understanding of their shared history with photographers from the past 150 years. I consistently show them works from contemporary photographers (Aperture and Blindspot are common sources), as well as works from books in our library (Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Alfred Stieglitz, Margaret Bourke-White, Jacob Riis, Ben Shahn and countless more) that reinforce the connection between contemporary practices in photography with the history of the medium.
I start out the semester as you might imagine: Basic camera function, film processing methods, basic darkroom techniques (making a contact sheet and basic print from a negative). But, we then quickly move into gradually more sophisticated directions with the media, such as:
- How to show movement and sequence.
- How to become increasingly sensitive to composition and the use of depth of field (how much space, or what object) is in focus to direct the viewer in a very specific manner.
- The tradition of portraiture and how the portrait can be used as a metaphor or symbol for so many peripheral subjects, or as a way to communicate more introspective or vulnerable aspects of the subject.
- How to use composite imagery and contrast filters to achieve an image that is both descriptive/naturalistic and abstract in nature.
- How to use lighting as a tool to illustrate and use mood, space, texture and movement in the image, as well as a way to change the context and to shift the meaning of the subject matter.
- How to compose the shoot so that darkroom methods (push processing, contrast filters, dodging and burning, cropping) can be used in a very sensitive manner.
- How to use larger format cameras (Mamiya RB67 and several 4x5 negative cameras) and a portable light meter to become increasingly sensitive to composition, use of depth of field, and richer use and depiction of light to create images with a more cinematic richness and range.
It is invigorating for me to be able to get the students to a point when they are confident with the basic technical aspects of film photography that they become “antsy” about moving to the next project in the class. This also allows me to have conversations with them about their work, as opposed to me just giving them technical lectures.
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