I recently had a chance to visit with a group of photography students, some high school, the majority college, and decided to ask a question I've wondered for a while now. Is having experience with a wet darkroom (developing film, printing) still important to a photo education? Their answers surprised me.

With digital taking over photography the last few years, there's little doubt that film and darkrooms will be a very small part of its future. I spent the first couple of decades of my photo life using darkrooms, but lately I've been thinking that spending time on traditional darkroom techniques and methods are probably a waste of time in a photography curriculum. Unanimously, though, this group of students disagreed with me.

They told me the time they spent in the darkroom was valuable to them. One said that it helped her better understand exposure. Having film that was overexposed or underexposed, and trying to work with it under an enlarger made a stronger connection than seeing the same sort of thing on a computer screen. Another talked about the historical connection she felt with the chemical process, going back to wet plates, and that gave her a better appreciation of photography as an art. Whatever their reasons, they were in total agreement that it was a good thing.

They all felt they were better photographers for the time spent working with film and enlargers. And of course that's all that matters - what you bring to the camera when you lift it up to your eye, your unique ability to control it and create with it.

Now when someone asks whether photography students should go straight to digital and computers, I'll have a different answer. I'll tell them that while it may not be absolutely necessary, my experience now suggests it's well worth the extra effort. Because the students told me so.