Don't Panic!

This, ironically, is from a Kodak blog.  They just announced the other day that what is left of the company is trying to sell of its still film products division.  This makes me sad.

It makes me sad in a bunch of ways.  For one thing, there's the obvious loss of another lovely thing in the world.  The tragic but inevitable demise of Kodachrome was bad enough, but that stuff was grossly expensive to make and especially to process.  Yeah, the color was wonderful, but it was a 1920s solution to the problem, rich and glorious but antiquated and, in the end, impractical.

So why, you're now asking with a predatory gleam in your eye, am I calling for the preservation of Tri-X?  Isn't that a 1950s solution to a problem that no longer exists?  (How does one get pictures for half-tone reproduction in newspapers in normal room light?)  Well, yeah.  But it was a helluva' solution, one that was so good that it ended up solving a bunch of other questions too, like how does one get nice candid pictures quickly and easily with simple equipment and exposure by eye?  I mean, TX is incredibly generous in its tonal range, and really dependable once you get used to it.  Depending on how you treat it, and the quality of the light, it can be almost as smooth as lower ISO films or as grainy and gritty as you want.

And it's really simple and relatively cheap to process.  All you need is couple of cans and reels, some D-76 and fixer, temperatures somewhere in the relatively comfortable range, and a dark room (preferably a darkroom, but anything from a bathroom at night to a closet will do) and some running water.  Okay, there are a few items on that list, but compared to other films (like the notoriously difficult to process Kodachrome), this is like saying: "Take stick, bang on stone.  You're done!"

Also, there's this whole question of my having shelves full of film cameras.  Once Kodak goes -- and I guess this might be inevitable in some way; look at GAF's film operation now* -- one's left with the feeling that it's a rapidly accelerating decline into oblivion for 35mm acetate-backed roll film.  Then what?  All my precious Leica Ms become, well, beautiful doorstops.

And I really like film.  It's something that's there.  You can hold it up to a window, and review the negatives without any further technical devices required.  (See above rant on simplicity)  And, with reasonable care, it won't go anywhere.  Open the file drawer, the barrister's box, and there they are, the black and white captures of life, a thousandth of a second from 20 or 40 or however many years ago.  Still there, vibrant and frozen in a moment of life.  How cool is that?  One slip of the wrong key, one hard drive crash, and where are your digital pictures?  Don't get me started on the subject of proof sheets ...

So, I guess I have to remember that almost every past form of photography is still practiced somewhere within reason.  There was a Daguerreotype of the Obama inauguration, for God's sake.  Surely someone will still make roll film. 

But what of my beloved Tri-X?




* That link's not a mistake.  GAF, the successor to, in reverse chronological order, Ansco and Scovil and the E. & H. T. Anthony Company, the place where Mathew Brady first learned to make pictures, now makes ... roof tiles.