I think most of us who do pinhole and "traditional wet" photography get the
satisfaction and enjoyment from an all manual, hands-on process. That
process is imprecise, and depending on film and exposure and processing and
printing, that "imprecision" yields beauty through grain, tonality, bokeh,
diffraction, silver, etc.
I have nothing against digital, and believe that simple flatbed, affordable
scanners like the Epson 2450 have opened the doors for everyone to share
their images online, which is absolutely great and has enriched my life.
What people are missing who go straight to digital is the beauty of wet
prints. Will digital prints ever approach the quality achieved by an 8x10
contact print? I don't think it's a matter of technical limitations --
surely digital will continue to increase the scope and quality of the ccds.
I think that the wet chemical process is just physically and fundamentally
different from digital, enough so that neither can really reproduce in a
pure technical sense the results of the other with accuracy. There's room
enough for all.
R.J.
Received on Tue Dec 10 12:15:50 2002
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