Rip Smith
Photography
Martinsburg, WV
I have been doing photography for something over 40 years, starting with a folding camera and black & white 120 roll film. Over time I have dabbled with various formats but mostly I have worked in 35mm since the early 1960's. I enjoyed the versatility of the 35mm SLR and took on the challenge of making high quality images from this small format.
Little by little I moved from the purely mechanical cameras like my late, lamented Nikon F, through the modern Nikon 35mm cameras until I have finally embraced the digital world. I now shoot with a Nikon D100 and the Beseler 45MX darkroom has been replaced by a computer, Photoshop, and an archival pigment printer. The creative and technical control over an image that you can get with the "digital darkroom" is just astounding.
With the great progress in the development of digital tools for photography over the last few years, the debate is heating up as to whether digitally captured and processed images are valid art forms.
There are those who argue that only images printed by hand in a chemical darkroom are valid as photographic art, and that digital prints made by a machine, however sophisticated, are something else and are not worthy contributions to the art of photography. I have spent enough hours in the darkroom to appreciate what goes into a fine print and I certainly admire those who do it well.
To me, photography is about the image, and the photographer's vision. Enlargers, darkroom chemicals, computers, Photoshop, printers, etc. are nothing more or less than tools for translating the photographer's vision into a medium that can be seen and enjoyed by others.
Ice House Artists' Co-op * Independence and Mercer Sts. * Berkeley Springs, WV * 304-258-2300