This same thing happened to me. I have been shooting film since 10 years old when I found a minolta srt101 at a thrift store. I had started college in the summer of 2008. I started off college knowing I wanted to be a photography major! The college I went to was doing darkroom courses and photography courses. They taught everything from large format to photojournalism. It was amazing and I learned so much and I loved the art of photography. in my second year, 2 things happend: – 1. because of the times and Digital becoming ever more present the college decided to switch to digital for all of the academics and the school newspaper. I had been a photographer for the paper and they took the school camera I was issued at the time a (canon Eos 1v and a few great lenses that I could never afford at the time) and replaced it with an awful canon 30D and the cheep kit zoom lens at the time. It was a garbage digital. It felt like a lifeless electronic to me.

2. The second thing the school did that broke the camels back is because the darkroom courses and the great film courses were not being taught anymore they moved the photography major from the fine arts department to the communications department. The new courses being taught wile were not bad felt tooo much away from the art of photography and the sole of it all. It broke my heart. I stoped really doing photography for a couple of years.

There was hope though. I found out after the first semester second year that art majors students could still utilize the darkrooms. I credit This alone to a major changing of my future. Not for the reasons you might think…. I became an art major. Though I only used the darkroom at the school a few times because of the expenses for a college student. I started really getting into painting and printmaking. I really stopped taking photos for about 3 or 4 years. Digital to me felt soless and not really art to me.

Thank goodness for the film resurgence. it really brought photography back to somthing I loved. heres the thing though while I still love photography and still shoot every day and love film and developing and playing in the darkroom, I am now a k-12 art teacher. I learned how to be creative in other ways other than photography. I dont know how my life would have turned out if my college had not dropped the film program.

To end this rambly comment photography is art to me. I try to teach it as an art to my studnets. every semester I teach my art 2 students 3 or 4 lessons on film photography. its amazing to see the students light up with excitement when they pull out their first negatives from the developing tank.