Being naughty in the darkroom

Last time we spoke of my photography class I was bitching and moaning about being forced to use a film camera. Cause, seriously? Who still uses a film camera?

Well, thanks to a new contact on Flickr, I was able to get a very cheap film camera. The internet is such a wonderful place.

After I loaded the camera. A second time. Because the first time I wound it the wrong way and ended up taking picture after picture all on the same little piece of film until I finally just ruined the whole roll by opening the back. But we won’t speak of that.

So after I loaded the camera with film. The correct way. I was off and ready to go. Our first assignment was to take pictures of shadows. Our professor assigned the shadow assignment in class a week ago Tuesday. And it promptly rained every day thereafter. You know what that means. Rain = no shadows.

It’s as if Mother Nature just wants to give me a big Fuck You. Thanks Mother Nature. Right back at ya.

But we finally got some sun. Yesterday. Just mere hours before the assignment was due. So the second the kids got home from school I forced Justis to pose for me on the front steps and in the middle of the street. I think I got some good shots, but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s class to check out the proof sheet.

As further proof that nobody uses film cameras anymore, both Lee and Justis (at separate times) asked me how the pictures turned out. To which I responded, “Umm…film camera. I have no clue until we develop them.” Oh that’s right. See film sucks. Digital? Good.

So in last night’s class we developed our film. I have never developed my own film before. Even back in the day when we all shot with film rather than digital, I mailed my film off to some cheap lab so they could develop my film. So it was kind of exciting to see how it all worked.

Of course, when developing film you need to be very careful not to expose it to light too soon. So we all piled in to the darkroom to get our film out of their cases and in to these big canisters. There was nine people, actually ten with our professor, piled in to this teeny-tiny darkroom. He explained how to remove the film and get it in to the canister. And then we turned out the lights.

As you can imagine, hilarity ensued shortly after the lights went out. How could there not be with ten people crammed in to a room the size of a small bathroom in the dark. The girl next to me needed the scissors. She hollered out, “I need the scissors.” And another girl said, “I have them.” Which is all fine and dandy, except how the hell were the two going to connect without stabbing somebody in the chest with the scissors? With a lot of giggling and a little bit of “ouch” they got the job done.

As the girl made her way back to her four inches of spot. In the dark. She accidentally poked me in the leg. But she didn’t know where she had touched me. She immediately started apologizing. She said, “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I have no idea where I touched you, but I totally apologize.” And because I’m a total bitch I couldn’t make her feel better by saying, “No problem. It was my leg.” I was all like, “Gasp! You touched me!” And then I giggled like a school girl because I think I’m funny. Good times.

Before we turned the lights back on another girl said, “One of us will probably be dead when the lights turn back on. It will be like one of those murder mysteries.” Our teacher then told us there are some secret passageways in this particular darkroom. And somebody else went on to explain that this really old building and it’s haunted.

And that’s when I started screaming like a little bitch.

Ok, maybe not. But I was ready for the lights to come back on. Because I do like darkness. But only when I’m sleeping. And not when it’s so dark I can’t get my night vision on.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. There was a lot of pouring different kinds of liquids in to our canister; developer, fixer, some kind of hyper something or other. There was also a lot of shaking the canister and pounding it on the table to get out the air bubbles. Followed by a wash. Then we were able to see our negatives. I’m pretty impressed with my negatives, but we’ll see how they translate in to actual pictures.

Related posts:

1. Treemendous Tonight wa

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.