250th Post........A Little Background Story: This Camera Buff

I probably should have something more spectacular for a *special number* post, but a good portion of my creative life came from learning photography from my father. Dad was a fine photographer---living in the era of 620 film (oh I can still smell the wrappers the rolls came in!), Speed Graphic cameras that had the film plates you had to load in a darkroom (and so large they required a trunk to carry them!), Roliflex cameras where everything in the viewfinder was upside down, and doing your own black and white work. Digital, Photo Shop, and all the other things we take for granted did not exist. This was the day of man, machine, emulsion and chemical.
And magic.

Thus I learned how to shoot the old fashioned way (not sure I remember much, other than framing up a shot!), load and develop my own film which I'm sure I could still do, work under safe lights and grew accustomed, and yes, even somewhat fond of the smell of stop-bath! Think vinegar, times 1000.......
Everything was measured exactly, temps of the chemicals had to be perfect, paper fresh or kept in dark, climate controlled conditions. Photography was truly an ART. He moved with an ease only those who had committed a goodly portion of time to work and learning of the rules would have. He was graceful in his art.

And you could do everything exactly right and still have a lousy print. Spent developer, a pack of old paper, old chemicals if you forgot to mark the bottles, over exposed, underexposed.......there were a host of *surprises*.
None the less, I loved the hours spent in the darkroom watching him work. Burning and dodging, making a vignette tool from a cigarette cellophane wrapper and a piece of paper, using his hand to gently reduce light from the enlarger in a small area of paper, slowly counting off seconds before we owned a timer to get proper exposure for the print, knowing from a negative how the positive would look, squinting through a photographer's loupe to examine the film for scratches or some lost detail.......it was, in a way, slight of hand, much like a magician.
He spoke in a language of F-stops, apertures, and fractions of seconds; sepia tones, warm and cool papers and resin and matte finishes. It was an exotic music to the ear.

Now I shoot, upload, crop and post. I seldom do anything fancy---I like a photo as it is. My programs on this computer are quite simple, for the most part. I burn through double A batteries in my zest to get the shot I want. I shoot too many variations of one thing (just like dad!), with little difference. I wander through the yard and seek photo-fodder. I have a mass of images stored that need sorting and some deleting.
This era is far too easy. A good camera and a good eye will get a decent shot. Photo Shop can correct almost anything. And no, I don't use it, nor do I know how. I am a luddite in that respect. Dodging and burning is done with a cursor and a mouse. (mostly me cursing!) Cropping is a click and roll instead of an easel with adjustable edges, or strips of cardboard in the case of an odd sized print. Vignette is a click of a button and adjusting the amount of area and the background color. The satisfaction is NOT the same.

I miss those days of film rolls, Kodak yellow, standing in a suffocating dark closet to load a roll of film into the tank reel for developing and the sound of the slow click of a lens when the camera, tight on a tri-pod, was set to *Bulb*. I miss lugging the equipment, the excitement of that first faint image beginning to show as I gently agitated the paper in the developer tray, the impatience of waiting for the paper to go through all the baths and then, to hold my soaking wet print in full light, in my hands, still reeking of chemicals. I miss the work of photography. I miss not knowing what I was going to be holding, and having to wait for it, to earn it.
It was a joy. And I would pass it along, or recommend it to anyone if you can set up a darkroom. A small area, access to water and the ability to close out the light, and the world, and enter the delightfully eerie and heart-thumping universe of developing your own prints.
There is nothing like it.
Really.
REALLY.
Creativity emerging from the ether........or in this case, a tray full of Kodak developer.

Pax.