stripethree

If there is one thing that that I dislike about the so-called ‘digital age’ we are in it is how it has long since been rumored that digital imaging will kill 35mm photography. Well, some of those long-standing rumors and fears are slowly coming true. In the past week two serious blows have come across. First, the announcement by Nikon that they are pretty much abandoning the 35mm SLR market, cutting their 35mm SLR lineup to two cameras and a handful of lenses, as well as cutting production of their medium and large format lenses and their enlarging equipment. Secondly, Konica-Minolta has announced that they are selling their digital camera business to Sony (the ‘how long until a root kit on your camera’ jokes have already started on /.) and that they are ditching the rest of the camera market including production of film and paper. Granted, the end isn’t immediate, it has been written.

Wow.

The digital age is going to kill my dreams of having a (small) darkroom in my house before I even have the chance to realize it. Granted, these two things ultimately won’t affect me much right now as my 35mm SLR brand of choice is Canon, but still, the thought that you will soon walk into a Penn Camera (or wherever you shop) and not have nearly as many choices as you used to for 35mm equipment and materials is daunting. Don’t get me wrong, I love my digital camera, it’s great; it’s small, takes great pictures, and has survived a heck of a beating over the last couple years. There’s still something there though that keeps me from selling my 35mm equipment. I don’t shoot that much film anymore but when I do there’s something about it that feels different. It still has a certain purity to it. Printing in the darkroom (as frustrating and tedious as it can be sometimes) still has great appeal to me; the reward of when you print a photo with just the right contrast and just the right tones; you can step back and really your work. To be able to display it somewhere and know, even if no one else does, that you created it, from start to finish. For me, there’s still the satisfaction of doing it yourself.