Saving Analog Photography

My buddy Leena Jayaswal, head of the photography program at American University (where we met and both graduated from about a decade ago), is quoted at length in today's Washington Post defending the lost dying waning art of analog photography.

One concern at AU, Leena concedes, is that the school invest big bucks "for what will be antiquated in ten years. Will we be spending all this money (on a darkroom) and not be able to buy paper, not be able to buy chemistry?" Noting the photo industry's public commitment to continue manufacturing paper, film and chemistry--if perhaps on a smaller scale--Leena says "I keep telling my division director, 'I'm in charge of photography; I'm head of photo.' Do you think I want to be head of a program that is antiquated? ...I have done a lot of research. In putting together our five-year plan for the new building, I called the other local schools like George Mason and GW, and called RISD [the world renowned Rhode Island School of Design.]. Somebody told me that RISD had gotten rid of all their darkrooms so I called them and they said, 'no, we just bought 30 new enlargers, maybe three years ago.'"

I'm in no sense a 'photographer,' but I'm nevertheless indebted to Leena, a not-infrequent drinking buddy who can still throw down much more Natural Light and other crappy beer than her 4'11" frame might suggest, for having shown me the intricacies of analog film and the so-called "wet" (analog) darkroom more than a decade ago, resulting in what are still some of the best photographs I've ever taken. And while I've since bought a digital camera -- mainly used for shooting travel or sports or the occasional blog shot -- when I know I need to take a quality shot I still gravitate to my old 35mm. And I think I always will.

Update: Thanks to Pete from Drug WarRant I can pass on some excellent throwback links he mentions in comments. There's a cool slide-rule site, an 8-track site, a BetaMax site, a steam-auto site, a carriage site, a butter-churner site, a coal-heater site, and a 110-film-cartridge site.