Photo program goes digital

The photography curriculum will discontinue film instruction and will focus exclusively on digital technology beginning next year because of difficulty acquiring film supplies. Blair is the first school in the county to update its photography equipment and curriculum, said photography teacher Franklin Stallings. Students began this year learning about traditional film photography and will make a transition to digital technology. Next year, students will not learn film photography at all. The traditional "wet" photography techniques in the curriculum, like burning and dodging in the darkroom to adjust a photograph's contrast, will be replaced with lessons on how to process photographs electronically using digital editing software like Adobe Photoshop. To prepare for the increased emphasis on digital processing and editing, Blair has purchased 16 new Apple computers equipped with editing software, in addition to 14 digital cameras, a scanner and a photo printer.