Editing Analog Work

As I discussed last month in my post "Why Digital Photography Promotes Creative Laziness in Amateur Photographers",  one of my main issues with digital photography is that the DSLR allows an amateur photographer to take as many photos as their memory card will hold while shooting on Automatic. In essence, the DSLR allows anyone to take a photo of just about anything, with very little effort.

Just as the DSLR allows you to seamlessly take photos without thinking about any kind of setting, it also grants you instant gratification. The second you've taken your photo, you can see it, as long as you're nearby a computer. After you've loaded all of your photographs onto the computer, you're then able to sift through them, one by one, selecting the ones you deem edit-worthy. Then, you get to upload those into any photo editing software of your choice, and adjust the settings to your heart's content. This, at times, can leave you with a photograph that looks nothing like the original shot.

Conversely, the "editing" process of analog work begins before you've even taken a photograph. The film photographer is generally hyper-aware of the number of photographs they will be able to take, contingent on the number of rolls of film in their pockets. Fast forward many rolls of film shot, you find yourself in the darkroom, mixing chemicals and timing out how long you want to develop, based on the ISO you shot at. You're forced to "edit" your work before you even get to see the negatives.

After you've developed, you're face-to-face with your negatives, and then take to an enlarger to begin making prints, where the closest thing to modern day photo editing takes place. When making prints, you're able to experiment with exposure time and even light filters, changing brightness and contrast through a process of trial and error. However, you will never get to simply toggle your mouse back and forth in order to see what your photo looks like darker or lighter, with more contrast or less.

The true editing of your analog work comes after you've made multiple prints of one image, and you compare them back-to-back until you decide the perfect "recipe" for the perfect print. This takes a great amount of time and effort, but the return is far more rewarding than simply printing out, or posting on your Instagram page, a photograph you took an hour before. Editing analog work is a process of trial and error, but a process that allows you to truly grasp who you are as a photographer, as you're unable to hide behind the façade of editing softwares and filters.