Thursday, May 14, 2015

Blogging for Thor: Talk About Digital Negatives!

This thing is so cool!!
Woah, Spiders! I was headed to bed (it's been a long day of work on my grant) when I saw this pop up as a sponsored link on Facebook. It's Fojo's new "$155 Darkroom" for Smart Phones. It's a real, actual enlarger that uses an app to project digital files from your Droid or iPhone onto photo paper. Yeah, that's right. You can make actual silver gelatin prints from a camera phone!

Do your little arachnotech brains understand how crazy this is? It's the utterly logical next step in camera phone technology! Why am I so excited? Because I work with college students and teenagers. I teach classes and workshops at community centers, museums, etc. This new device is absolutely perfect for that!

Normally, to get students into the darkroom, you either have to do photograms or supply stock negatives. Photograms are fun, but generally people don't put much composition or thought into them. They also don't have any connection to the photogram. Nor will they have any connection to or investment in stock negatives. Let's face it: folks these days just don't have negatives laying around. Especially not people taking an introductory darkroom workshop or class. What does everyone have? A camera phone. With photos that they've taken, that they enjoy, that they might love.

So now, using this amazing device, you can bring a class of students into the darkroom with no prior experience required at all. They download an app onto their phone, stick their phone in the enlarger and boom. They have a print. They still have to learn about test strips and whatnot, but they don't have to buy film, learn to shoot on a film camera, and go through all the hassles and pitfalls of trying to develop, wash and dry film.

I know that this would blow the minds of little kids, or even my college students. I would love to have six or seven of these in a community darkroom. It'd really engage people, turning something previously so far out of reach (money, time, trouble..) into something incredibly accessible. I truly wish all the best to this company. If I wasn't moving in two months, I'd be running around town bellowing about this at the top of my lungs!

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