It was always a hobby and I do not do this for a living anymore, but the interest has never wained, even in all these years (I began photographing when I was a child - I have never lost the urge).
Photography is something that I will probably always pursue.
Except for the purely commercial usages, I have yet to embrace the digital photographic processes. Sure, I have a digital camera to document our kids lives, but I do not use it to express my need to make art.
I still use my film cameras, including a Sinar P2 kit in four by five format.
This is an image of an eight by ten version of the same model from a retailer in New York. Mine looks identical to this, but it uses four by five film, instead of eight by ten (those numbers are in inches, measuring along each edge of the film, btw).
Film and people who process the non consumer grade stuff is getting harder to find. This was my brother's business and life up until not that long ago. He specialized in custom B&W processing, all by hand on equipment that some of which dated to WW2
I am not concerned about what other people are doing in this business - never have been. Except for a few months at a time after moving or something, I have had a darkroom since I was twelve.
I have modern equipment, however. You can not process C41 with older equipment. For one thing, the older gear was designed for black and white film and keeping the processing temperature near sixty eight degrees, plus or minus a degree or two, was simple and only required a pipe running under the building to temper the water.
With C41, the processing temperature must be maintained within one quarter of a degree to achieve consistent results, also, it must be at one hundred and four tenths degrees, so a heater is necessary. It is much less fuss to simply use a machine designed to maintain the temperature properly. Aside from the temperature, though, the actual developer is also critical to maintain consistency. A perfect consistency is hardly necessary when you are processing for the general public, since no one cane see even forty points of color difference, but when you are expecting accuracy, you MUST follow the process as closely as possible. Even batch numbers can make a visible difference, in both developers and film.
I generally use my gear to process E6, however. It is a process that was designed to be used for processing slides or positive imagery, instead of negative imagery like "plain old film."
Except for a bit of black and white, I have only used slide film for about ten years now. I had switched to digital for my commercial work before I was "retired," a few years back. Back then digital imagery really sucked, but we had to enter the digital world in order to compete.
The largest image size I could create was five megapixels and the gear - a complete camera system, flash, radio remote, multiple backs, fancy camera, several lenses, etc - cost more than a new Cadillac.
