2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
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print this pageWhy the Darkroom Matters in the Digital Age
with J. Jason Lazarus
Saturday, November 05 - 1:00PM to 2:00PM
This presentation focuses on the purpose that the traditional darkroom serves in the modern academic setting, emphasizing integral lessons that are difficult, if not impossible, to pass on in the digital lab. With fewer than 200 years standing between us and the birth of photography, this young art form has developed at a breakneck pace, often reinventing the entire medium every couple of decades. Always closely aligned with technological advances, photographers and educators look ahead for an appropriate curriculum trajectory, often overlooking the important and palpable lessons easily communicated by earlier methods. Beyond digital capture and editing, these advances have also offered convenience to often cumbersome historical methods, allowing artists to explore analog creation with digital capture. By blending these two approaches to photography, we allow students to learn three distinct lessons that are often difficult to pass on in a modern digital lab:
• An Appreciation of the Tangible Print: harnessing the potential of a process to create something with your own hands. By taking ownership of something you can hold, you develop pride for your abilities in - and out -of the darkroom.
• The Artist’s Hand: developing an appreciation of the subtle - to make your work truly a piece of you and a reflection of your passions.
• The Element of Play: Our pursuit of artistic perfection often focuses on the technical understanding of our equipment and not an appreciation of the pursuit itself. Embracing failure, appreciating imperfection and playing without any specific goals brings back some of the most important elements of our childhood development.
As we seek, as educators, to create dynamic courses that embrace a variety of learning methods, I cannot fathom a better way than to introduce this new generation of students to the blended darkroom - a place where digital conveniences meet analog creation.
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