Do you remember a time before
digital cameras? I can say that I
vaguely remember my parents having a small black film camera. There are film pictures all over my house now
up until about 2000 give or take a few years.
Digital cameras have become such a norm, especially now that they are on
most cell phones, that I don’t think we give much thought to old
technologies.
In Grade 10 I signed up for the photography
option that was offered at my high school.
Some of my friends had taken this course and said that it was so much
fun. When I signed up I had no way of
knowing that we had a dark room in the school let alone what a dark room
was. I soon found out when I found out
that I would need an old film camera. I
was shocked! This camera wasn’t supposed to be just any camera either we needed
a 35mm. Where was I supposed to get one
of these? Sure the school had several we
could rent out but I would have to share it with about 20 other students. We luckily had a friend that had one.
That was
four years ago!! I can’t imagine trying find another one now. However old school these types of cameras are
I can say that I find some value of struggle of trying to develop the film. From fumbling around in the dark to wash the film. To being careful to hide the paper until it was in the developing solution. I remember the magic of watching the image appear on the photo paper. The anger when someone wrecked the film. I don’t know why but I loved doing film
photography (even though I’m not a big picture taking person). My laptop wouldn't let me scan any of my pictures from Grade 10 so I can't share any with you right now but maybe I can another time.
This exactly how I remember doing photography in high school. Although it seems that you had more success than myself, I loved the feeling of washing the paper in the solution and having a picture emerge. I think film photography is a maybe a dying art form but I am glad to see that people still appreciate and maybe still want to preform this skill.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post!