Which way are you looking?

Sorry for two videos in a row, but I thought this one was particularly good and awful at the same time, for various reasons. Boo-Hoo, the darkrooms are going away, we can cry all we like and it is good that somebody thought to make images of them so we can look back - that will be even more fun in 50 years. But the challenge is to recognize the new possibilities, if they exist. I believe they do. The main limitation is my/our own imagination once confronted with reduced-utility technology. Focal plane projection imaging is still a growing field, and not until plane array imaging (lensless cameras) become commonplace will the lens, the light source, the capture device (digital electronic, or digital silver grains, or something else) completely go away. The analog portion of photography as we do it hasn't changed at all - the only analog parts were lenses and shutters anyway, and we still have them. It is up to artists to decide what fun they can have with it at a bargain, if they can overcome their nostalgia, and see new potential.

It is always this way.