Here it is. How the dark room trip turned out last week.
I love being in the dark room. I love being alone, listening to music and patiently making prints. However, a lot of times prints just don’t work. Maybe there are spots on the film, maybe the shot was too dark, maybe it was too light, maybe there just isn’t enough contrast. Unlike digital photos, playing around with them doesn’t take ten minutes to figure out what you have is crappy, it takes four hours. I spent four hours in the dark room, used a bunch of paper and six utterly lame prints. Don’t get me wrong there are some good qualities to them, but I would never have submitted them for an assignment. Here are my photos and some (numbered) dilemmas when developing prints from film. Number one: I need to focus on my focus. So many of the shots that I was looking forward to, just didn’t come out clear. For example, I took the photo below while I was stuck in the snow driving back to school. The texture of the trees and the snow is great but it still looks out of focus to me.
I love being in the dark room. I love being alone, listening to music and patiently making prints. However, a lot of times prints just don’t work. Maybe there are spots on the film, maybe the shot was too dark, maybe it was too light, maybe there just isn’t enough contrast. Unlike digital photos, playing around with them doesn’t take ten minutes to figure out what you have is crappy, it takes four hours. I spent four hours in the dark room, used a bunch of paper and six utterly lame prints. Don’t get me wrong there are some good qualities to them, but I would never have submitted them for an assignment. Here are my photos and some (numbered) dilemmas when developing prints from film. Number one: I need to focus on my focus. So many of the shots that I was looking forward to, just didn’t come out clear. For example, I took the photo below while I was stuck in the snow driving back to school. The texture of the trees and the snow is great but it still looks out of focus to me.
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| P.S. That white spot is a glare from the light. |
Number two: My photos are either too light or too dark. They don’t all turn out like that, but the ones I was really looking forward to printing did.
Bummer.
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| Too dark. |
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| Too light. But see that little figure? I love the composition of this one so much because of the little person. She was actually walking with her dog in the middle of the storm in the field. Awesomeness. |
Number three: SPOTS! For gosh sake, my fingers had the slightest bit of chemicals on them on the paper just has to get all funky on me.
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| Seriously, this photo was in focus, and has a pretty much perfect contrast. Alas, several spots surfaced (at least this means that I can go back eventually and make a good print though). |
AND THEN THERE’S PHOTOS WITH EVERY PROBLEM.
Great.
Oh film photography, I love you so much even when you frustrate me.
