Photography has been my interest, and at times my unparallelled passion, since I got my first camera back in junior high school. I won a bunch of prizes as a teen, did a lot more with it in college, then pursued it very seriously later, doing both 35mm and large format (4x5") work, mostly in black and white.

I fell out of photography again in the mid-90s, because the lack of a darkroom really made it impossible to do the kind of work that I enjoy, which tends to be very printing-intesive. I got back into it a few years ago, still working on film, but often moving to digital for my post-processing work.

Still, it's only recently that I've moved away from film entirely. For one thing, reasonable quality printing of digital photos is finally good enough to satisfy my needs. For another, the papers have come a ong way. Photoshop has also come a long, long way and now allows me to do just about everything that I ever wanted to when working in chemicals. Until very recently I still kept one film camera -- there were still a few things I liked to do, and certain effects I liked that were tough to accomplish with a digital camera and Photoshop. 10+ megapixel cameras and better familiarity with the application have solved those problems for me. My photos don't look the same as they do in silver medium, but they are a look that I like and it's a medium that I've become conversant enough in to abandon its predecessor.

I've slowly sold off my 4x5 camera equipment, then some of my 35mm film cameras, and now finally the last one. My last roll of film, started last winter, will be processed unfinished, because I can't think of any reason I'll ever finish it.

But, I've got to be a contrarian here. Digital works fine for me, but I still think film has a future, and that people like my former instructor John Sexton, are perhaps being a bit too concerned about the disappearance of silver-based potography as an art form.

Make no mistake about it, digital will rule the consumer and commercial worlds in the years to come. But just as there are those who still work in platinum, palladium, daguerreotype and other commercially obsolete technologies, there will also be artists who continue to work in silver for the unique look it makes possible.

In fact, I suspect that the opportunities for those who want to work in silver will actually expand in the coming years, particularly for those who are working in black and white. The reason is that the tyrrany imposed by Kodak and others whose manufacturing methods and scale demanded that they produce only large runs of similar product will be over. As with other purely artistic mediums, silver photography will come to be dominated by smaller firms, selling highly differentiated products, working in small batches and tailoring their products to small niches. There is already evidence of this happenning, as small manufacturers around the world (many in eastern Europe) have sprung up as the big players have abandoned the niche.

Though I have moved my own work to digital, I hope to continue decorating my walls with the works of those who continue to work in other media as well. And I suspect that they'll probably have a far greater set of choices and creative options than I did when I worked with silver and chemistry a decade ago.

-btc