Still Printing in the Darkroom? Try Adox Paper!

Orange is back in style!

When Agfa Photo went belly-up in 2005, I was devastated. The paper and other black and white photo materials which I had used for many years and which in part defined my style were no longer available. I went back to using Ilford materials, which I found to be adequate, but not up to Agfa's superior quality. Now the Adox company of Germany has revived many of Agfa's inimitable photo products, including variable and graded paper, film and chemistry. Adox bought the old Agfa manufacturing machines and claims the materials to be identical to the original. My experience bears this out. The superb quality, including the long tonal scale, deep, rich blacks and ability to produce more contrast (which can save many otherwise unprintable negatives) are all there! For me, a new day has dawned and my interest in silver printing has been renewed, even in this digital age. Both the RC and Fiber versions are outstanding. This is an unsolicited endorsement, and I encourage you to try this paper. I really want to keep this bold venture afloat so we don't lose this excellent product again. Also, if you were a fan of Agfa film and the famous Rodinal, now Adonal, developer (not my cup of developer, but I know many who swore by it), these have been reincarnated as well. Currently available in the USA only from Freestyle Photo. Many worldwide distributors can be found on the Adox website, along with technical data. Happy printing!

Why Study Art?

...and so he became an art teacher.
©1979 Mark Alan Stamaty

Autumn is here, and it's time for students and teachers alike to turn their thoughts back to the business of education. I sometimes hear the value of formally studying art debated. After all, art is a subjective thing and who's to say what's good or bad? True, we can teach technique and traditions, but can creativity be learned, or is it something innate? I once heard the photographer Roy DeCarava (who taught at Hunter College for many years) say that the best experience you can expect from an art teacher is "to be inspired, to get really turned around." I have been lucky to have had several teachers who influenced and informed my path as an artist. What has distinguished the best teachers has been their passion and commitment as artists, not only as educators but as practitioners of their craft. As Phil Perkis noted in Teaching Photography: Notes Assembled, "The teacher is seldom the person who loves science and runs home after school to the basement to do science experiments." But how much better to have a teacher who actually does what they teach! The best schools require this from their instructors, but incredible as it seems, many do not. I know an artist who enrolled in a university art education program to discover that many of her fellow students had never made art themselves, yet they would earn degrees declaring them "art educators". It's no wonder then that this lack of commitment leads to mediocre teaching in the arts, which further justifies fiscal cuts. I'm also tired of the perceived need to justify art in the schools because it improves test scores in other, more "academic" disciplines. Why shouldn't art be taught for it's own inherent value and the joy it brings? As Krishnamurti observed in Think on These Things, we should be teaching our students how to think rather than what to think. That's what studying art gives us.

• I highly recommend Phillip Perkis' Teaching Photography, Notes Assembled, available from Photo Eye Bookstore.
• The Society for Photographic Education (SPE) is an excellent resource for teachers and students of photography.