FREE AT LAST: Associate Prof. John Freeman says the College made the right decision trading in darkroom education for an all-digital approach.
Rebel with a cause
Photojournalism professor picks Canon digital
By Emily Jourdan
Using a grant from the College made possible by alumni donations, Associate Prof. John Freeman presented 40 sleek new Canon Digital Rebels to his spring Introduction to Photojournalism students.
During his fall 2004 sabbatical, Freeman researched the best camera for the program, picking the 6.3 megapixel Rebel with its 18-55 mm zoom lens. Spending $35,700, he also bought camera bags and memory cards, the “film” in digital cameras.
Digital cameras help students focus more on content than technique, he said. He can demand better work, faster.
“I used to always harp about not bringing excuses to class,” Freeman said. “We run the class like a newspaper and you can’t publish excuses. With digital, you shouldn’t have any because you have instant feedback.”
When Freeman joined the faculty in 1991, he aimed to “champion change,” he said. At that point, newspapers mostly scanned slide film. So out of the darkroom and into the computer lab he went. The College disassembled one of its two darkrooms, keeping the smaller one, which houses five enlargers.
No longer part of the curriculum, the small darkroom is there “just in case,” he said. Although students periodically express interest, they rarely use it. Chemicals, jugs and paper are on a self-supply basis.
Digital is what the business uses, so that’s what students should focus on, said Orlando Sentinel Photo Editor Tom Burton, JM 1982. “We, in the last five years, have not hired a photographer or an intern who did not have digital experience. It wasn’t by design but it seems that all the best programs are working that way.”
Burton believes students interested in learning darkroom techniques should find an outside source.
Hilda Perez, JM 1984, an Orlando Sentinel photographer and picture editor, participated in the digital revolution covering the war in Iraq. “Transmitting from a desert in sandstorms, I don’t know how I could have done that otherwise,” she said. “Film had to be air-flown before, but now you can cover things on the spot.”
Nevertheless, Perez believes the College should use the darkroom, which she considers an “epicenter of creativity.” She sees psychological, philosophical and spiritual aspects to it.
“You learn new things and can bounce ideas off of each other,” she said. “Digital people are not in the office, so we’ve lost the personal aspect and dialogue of photography.”
Darkrooms bred camaraderie and taught techniques in contrast and lighting, said Perez, a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. “Darkroom procedures are the foundation of a lot of what we do. It all intertwines.”
Even couples disagree on this topic. Gene Page, JM 1989, who once taught the College’s Survey of Photojournalism as an adjunct lecturer, is less than thrilled with the lack of darkroom technique in the program and with digital cameras in general. His wife Kim Bauldree, MAMC 2003, who is teaching the course this semester, argues that the darkroom can be frustrating for beginners and is no longer needed: Photography should be more about the moment than anything else.
“Printmaking is counterproductive,” said Bauldree, a documentary maker. “It’s liberating not to have to worry about the darkroom.”
“To me, the darkroom equals photography and vice versa,” said Page, a still-photographer on movie sets.
Page, whose father owned the Bradenton Herald, published his first picture at the age of 10. He acknowledges the industry’s demand for digital but still believes it is the College’s job to supply the foundation of information, even if it’s outdated.
“Not teaching darkroom is like having someone go from crawling to riding a bicycle. You’re leaving out an important process,” he said. “Regardless of what papers do and don’t do, I can’t imagine someone being a photographer and not knowing darkroom techniques.”
Yet Cassie King, JM 2005, felt relieved when she discovered she wouldn’t have to learn darkroom techniques in Freeman’s Introduction to Photojournalism. “I was happy,” she said. “Digital is much easier, you don’t have to think so much about what you’re doing.”
Freeman answers challenges to his methods with a question, “Why teach an unnecessary skill?”
“We only have so much time to teach students the practices of photojournalism,” he said, “so we dedicate it to the current standards and look forward to the future.”
