THE LAST REALA 120 SOON TO BE "EXPOSED"??

Just another sad day in many for the analog world of photography over the last years. Fujifilm Austria has now confirmed in an email that my most beloved film "Fuji Reala 120" has been discontinued - among other films and products - and that NO follow-up is planned. Seems like it is time to buy a fridge for my stock that should get me through until the end of 2014, but still: Soon the last one of this brilliant films will probably be exposed or expire somewhere in the world.

With the (since years of course) rising popularity of (in the first place) cheaper and for some purposes definitely more convenient digital photo"graphy" it became much more difficult and expensive to keep the handcraft of photography and the dying art of the photographic darkroom alive because you are constantly confronted with changes, delivery problems, discontinuations ...

Still: Digital photo"graphy" is just not the same even though filters can do the job for you to make it nearly "look a like". In regards to media philosophical and -theoretical aspects, its brilliance of color transitions in print, and in regards to archival purposes for the future, they communicate a different thing though - the period that will probably be known as a "dark hole of digital data information loss". But why? Because either noone will be able to read the harddisks, or noone will have the time or be interested to digg through folders of digital trash in search for a holy digital grale. At least platforms like facebook will have a big archive of photos they can sell, haha; its as ironical as that.

Anyways, being constantly confronted with the question of which ingredient to the most delicious version of a cake you can cook will be discontinued next, I will try to keep working in the photographic darkroom up as long as I can. I know this will not change Fujis decision or the market that orients itself after what can be sold and makes the biggest profit, but still I feel better with these words written. "Gut Licht!".

THE DYING ART OF ("JUST??") THE PHOTOGRAPHIC DARKROOM ...

Leaning on a very nice project by Richard Nicholson and a post published by the Guardian that featured the project under the headline of “the dying art of the photographic darkroom", I tried to leave you some personal thoughts, that has been haunting me for a while.

Even more since I read an interesting manuscript called “Rauchzeichen aus dem Labyrinth - Der onthologische Anspruch der Photographie” by Steffen Kammler last year (“Rostocker Phänomenologische Manuskripte”).

Bringing what i read in the manuscript together with what i saw in Richard Nicholsons project and what I experience of being a photographer that still partly processes in the darkroom, i was wondering …  “What esle is going to be gone if the photographic darkroom really dies out? Where (if there) is this thin border between photography in the broader and photography in the narrower sense? The border, that after Steffen Kammler and in conjunction with the darkroom would have to be drawn behind “the negative that has been the last instance that has direct contact with the light and therefore carries the trace of the referent”? Something that digital photography can not claim for itself as “the lightsensor that literally takes the place of the photosensitive layer, in comparison does not show any trace of contact after the contact with the light …” because “the location of the light-contact is seperated from the location where the information is stored.” (Steffen Kammler, Rauchzeichen …, page 28).

I’m not a philosopher and I know that in the end it might not really matter for the (average) spectator. But still I do - as an artist - confront myself with the media I’m working with. As I had to deal with some slight problems after Kodak lately decided to stop production of a certain paper I partly used over the last 9 years of printing - and loved, I had to think about that question of the media even more and had to involuntarily compare those two (very different) crafts from an at least process oriented point of view:

“The craft and process of taking a negative, filterting colors and getting a result by printing in the darkroom” VS “the craft of scanning a negative and trimming dozens of adjustment layers” to get a similar result.

It’s not that I decided to switch from analog processing to digital. It was a “just in case” for a “worst case” scenario where - in my case - Fuji decides to discontinue their Kodak “equivalent” out of the blue!!!! (A scenario artists, photographers,… unwillingly have to deal with due to technical changes, lobbying or companies stopping the production of certain fundamental ressources of their work; not just in photography.) However; I started comparing the procedures and steps that would bring me to that similar result and I started wondering about which craft carried more of that (non existant) claim to reality that (from a laymen’s and not philosophical or mediat-heoretical perspective) makes photography the photography “we somehow believe in”. And I came to the conclusion, that for me personally it is more “the process in the photographic darkroom” than the one infront of the screen and dozens of layers changing the appearance of a picture, that gives me that unique (authentic-like) feeling of being a photographer documenting the world around me. Although I know that I’m still a photographer (not better or worse) if I use my digital camera (that i like aswell - no digital hater here) to make a picture. But still; it’s just different and not the same. If it has something to do with Steffen Kammler’s statements, i don’t know. But I know there is space to give it some more thoughts. As always.

Enjoy the documentary (youtube) and Kodak, Fuji, … (if you’re out there) give it a thought and please just sometimes continue carrying extraordinary items like special papers, … within you product catalogue. As an acessory if you like. I know you do and I also know that you have to be competitive in a globalized world, but those are big decisions you make and it always effects someone.
I’m not expecting anyone to read what I just wrote. The flood of information is just one other thing that comes along with our digital times. If you do, thanks for taking the time; otherwise i can say: for me personally it was great to clear some thoughts that were running around in my head anyway.

I wonder if “Vinyl” survives the “Compact Disc” by the way. Enjoy!