Photographers at NSCAD University are making adjustments

Digital photography shift changes how students produce photos

Aidas Rygelis, a 24-year-old former student, uses NSCAD University’s digital photography facilities to work on an upcoming exhibition. Photo: Kim Keitner

A printer in the photography lab at NSCAD University hums as it spits out more than a dozen black-and-white photographs. Across the room sits the schools' latest acquisition - a colour photography inkjet printer.

Aidas Rygelis, a 24-year-old a former student of the photography department, is still making use of the schools' facilities. He's using an inkjet printer to prepare for an upcoming exhibition. When Rygelis was in the program he processed his colour photos in a darkroom.

"With digital it's really easy to let the computer do a lot of the work," he says. "This is where the field is going."

Students in the photography program this year no longer have the same option that Aidas and his classmates had. The inkjet printer has replaced the manual processing.

Chris Nielsen, director of the photo lab, says the move is "part of an evolution that NSCAD couldn't control" and that the program was "unable to support the equipment needed" to continue the manual process.

Consumers are seeking out digital products, which means suppliers are producing less of the older technologies.

"Most of the people who made the processors are no longer in business," says Nielsen.

Allen Sutherland, general manager of the Atlantic Photo Supply store on Spring Garden Road, says the transition from manual photography to digital has been gaining momentum over the past decade. Last year Polaroid ceased production of its instant film.

"Technology's changing," says Sutherland, "film is going, soon it's going to be gone."

He used to get up to 40 rolls a day and now it's unusual to get more than a couple. But Sutherland says business is booming. A large space above the store that used to be a darkroom now holds about a dozen digital processing machines.

Environmentally, digital is "100 per cent friendlier," says Sutherland, because of the chemicals used in a manual-processing lab - chemicals he says were being dumped into Halifax Harbour.

Image resolution - how clear a photograph is once it's enlarged - has also come a long way with digital photography.

"You're actually getting better quality and more control with digital files than you did with film," says Sutherland.

One drawback with digital technology is the rate of obsolescence. Advances in technology are rapid and force the user to replace their equipment more frequently.

Nielsen says it's a decision that most students have embraced. But there are some who miss the old process.

"The issue is simply that they never had the chance to explore what that was like," says Nielsen.

Rygelis agrees inkjets are faster and more practical, especially for students since it's, "a technology that they'll be using a lot more" once they graduate.

But Rygelis says he "really liked the colour darkrooms" and, in moving towards digital, "there's a certain romance that appealed to more traditional photographers that is lost."

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