Why Take Black & White Photos?

Series Summary

As digital photography takes over, traditional film processing is gradually being phased out. No longer do people get the thrill of watching a photo develop right before your eyes in a darkroom. They just pull them up on a computer and there they are. But photographs printed the old-fashioned way are somehow still magical. The tones, especially for black and white photos, are much richer than those from digital images. This is the reason why traditional printing continues to have a stronghold in the art world. A job well done in the darkroom can't be beat!

In this series of free photography videos from our experienced photo printer, you will learn about developing and printing black and white film. Our expert gives you an overview of the materials you will need, such as developer, fixer and stop bath, and discusses processing requirements for different types of film. Not sure how to equip your darkroom? Watch this video series for an overview of the black and white film printing process.

Video Transcript

"Today I'm going to be talking about black and white film development. First, I'm going to explain why people still do black and white film. It is becoming a lost art in a way and in a way, it's definitely going the way of the Dodo bird, but more and more people are doing it and seeing why they like it. Black and white film is archival. Archival means that this film, if processed correctly, can last forever. So in a way, when you have these negatives, they can essentially last over a thousand years as opposed to a digital image, which is still up for debate as to whether or not this can actually last the test of time. So for some professionals and some hobbyist's, this is a great way to produce fine art prints. And right here are some of the basic items you need to develop black and white film, and I'm going to be talking about these and how you can do them."