Nowadays, without the pungent funk of developer and stop bath, the only thing making digital photography stink is if its just a bad photograph!
Ya know,
To mash-up something from Apocalypse Now, I have to say there there was nothing like the smell of NYC corner-shop coffee and fresh, hot photographic fixer being prepared in the Gang Lab at Pratt Institute's Brooklyn campus in the early morning.
For an aspiring photographer, it truly smelled like...
Victory!
Actually it was probably toxic, but it was the danger factor making photography appealing, wasn't it?
Do you know, do ya know, ya know?
I miss the days when I exposed for the shadows and printed for the highlights...
When a roll of film cost $9 plus tax and I needed four, when all I had was bus fare... (0.75)
When I thought 400 ASA was "FAST!"
When I exposed at 400ASA, pushed to 1600 but loaded 25.
When I wished I could shoot at 6400 without hail-sized grain...
When a roll of film suffered light leak because it got crushed in my camera bag or in my pocket...
When I cut myself in the loading room and bled everywhere rather than risk damaging the now open film...
Wondering if my blood is making a cool new chemical effect and thinking, "Hey, if this works, I can start a new look and trend no one will ever figure out! I'll be rich!"
The disappointment when I realized it didn't.
When the leaf shutter malfunctioned and every exposure was wrong.
When the sync speed was off and only half of the images were properly exposed...
When I thought I shot a whole roll but when I opened the back, I noticed the film slipped off the sprockets at the third frame.
When my fingers were too cold to activate the nifty heat sensor to take a picture.
When the advancing mechanism didn't work and I had the word's first septuple exposure and I thought, 'Hey, if this works, I can start a new look and trend no one will ever figure out! I'll be rich!
The disappointment when I first learned the meaning of ‘Bulletproof!’
To be continued…
When film got stuck to itself in the developing tank
because I loaded it wrong or the steel guides were bent.
I could have captured the Loch Ness monster, big foot and alien aircraft but no one will ever believe it...
When film got stuck together, emulsion to emulsion of course, in the drying bin and my feverish attempts to save them through re-wetting, only to see the bubbled emulsion mockingly look back at me.
The wetting agent that isn't supposed to leave a stain does! The fingers you're not supposed to run down my negs do too!
I thought, I can save this and, "Hey, if this works, I can start a new look and trend no one will ever figure out! I'll be rich!"
The stark disappointment when I concede it just looks like streaks!
The bone-piercing sting of developer as it enters an open cut.
The bone-piercing sting of fixer as it enters the same open cut.
Thinking about how toxic the chemicals are and cancer and wondering if I will die or develop some hideous mutation! Cool!
To be Continued…
Not telling anyone there's blood in the developer... Heck, iron and silver... Hmmm.
When forgetting to tap-tap-tap the developing tank and getting those damn undeveloped areas under the bubbles!
Forgetting the process, developing the film too long and getting bulletproof negatives...
Cursing like Yosemite Sam when I realize the film in the fancy, self-loading, no worries about misloading, developing tank misloaded...
When cutting through my finger to bone is more welcome than the feeling when I cut through the image part of a negative and then cursing like Yosemitie Sam's unsaved cousin... (Flip-flappin-yap-frakin-mapa-frapa, ding-dangin-brika-braka- shaka-boom-mapa-ruka-fruk!) stare at it in futility.
Then apologizing to the Jesuit priest using the gang lab to print his Bible study club photos...
To be continued…
When I accidentally poured fixer into my freshly loaded developing tank because I only labeled the bottles, '2:1' but forgot which was which. And no, I didn't smell it first; those chemicals stink! I probably had a cold and couldn't smell them anyway!
And why does dust have to always find my wet negatives and why do they always find the subjects faces!?!
Advancing from mere plastic negative holders to glassenes only to accidentally get them wet with humidity or water or coffee or shudders, chemicals, and finding glassene adheres to negatives better than Elmer's wood glue and crazy glue combined.
I frantically try to re-wet only to realize it's hopeless, but then I think, "Hey, if this works, I can start a new look and trend no one will ever figure out! I'll be rich!" Then, looking dejectedly at it like a lost child, I don't even have the heart to throw them away. I put them in a separate book like cryogenic freeze; maybe someday science will figure a way to revive them...
Darkroom procedural snobbery...
Contaminated wooden tongs in the wrong bath... Peon.
Stumbling around in the dark...
"That" not so attractive girl thinking you're trying to touch her...
"That" really cute one who I stay away from because she knows I do...
The creepy Goth chick who keeps brushing against me… Eech!
Going to the enlarger and making the exposure I thought was set, only to find I'm at the wrong enlarger.
Realizing, too late, developer or fixer or both eat surgical gloves...
Dumping the developer, making new developer, waiting for it to cool to the right temperature...
Splashing fixer in my eye... Good Morning!
No professor, I haven’t been smoking dubes, I splashed developer in my eyes… Really!
Accidentally folding your negative in the enlarger carrier and then remembering the first time you did that and tried to re-flatten it in the heat press, only to make some potato-chip-like art piece.
I fought back a tear, as my head spun around
and I cursed liked Linda Blair...
Using .5, near tissue printing paper because that's all I can afford only to watch them tear as I lift them from their chemical bath trays... Or wrinkle like a senior citizen after drying.
Accidentally dropping RC paper on the floor - emulsion side down of course! It finds the only grain of sand in the county and then the print manages to rub itself across it 14 times, leaving marks through the most important part of my image... Of course!
Using RC when I wanted matte...
Using matte when I wanted RC!~!!
Using matte paper and realizing I can't tell which side the emulsion is on so I print on the wrong side... I thought,
"Hey, if this works, I can start a new look and trend no one will ever figure out! I'll be rich!" Only to realize the print just looks like crap!
Starting exposure tests all over again...
Accidentally fogging my paper...
Intentionally fogging my paper...
Accidentally turning on the white light before closing my double-weight, fiber, 16x20, Illford, Pearl, box of 50 sheets that cost me my entire month's stipend...
Cursing like Yosemitie Sam... See above...
My perfect print stained in the heat press because I forgot to put in clean mats...
My favorite, finished print stained because I picked it up before I washed my hands after picking a different print out of the fixer.
The rank odor of Selenium toner,
the equally rank odor of Sepia toner...
The cancer-causing combination of developer, fixer and toners!
Chromium stabilizer...
Wanting to snag the silver recovery tank when no one was looking...
Realizing not too many people could tell the difference between Microdol and d-76 development even at 90 degrees. What's more nobody really cared!
Realizing if you wanted good greens and reds use Fuji, ah,
but if you wanted warm yellows, get Kodak!
Realizing that Kodachrome WAS the best!
After an extremely long day of darkroom work you forget your prize negative in the enlarger overnight, only to find the techs threw it away. You feverishly dig through the dumpster and fight back a tear when you see it covered with coffee and coco and orange crush and several other acidic compounds, yet unknown to science, dining on your emulsion. Just as they are now dining on your jeans and Nikes.
You rush the negative back to the lab like an incensed EMT trying to save a gunshot victim. You wash it vigorously... The EKG is flat-lined, the whining print dryer sounds like its tone...
You fight back another tear,
then you think,
"Hey, if this works, I can start a new look and trend no one will ever figure out! I'll be rich!" You even try to print it and convince yourself it looks cool... But it looks like crap and your friends and professors tell you so...
Bluntly...
Color work in complete darkness...
The wrong chemical balance and the wrong agitation cycle...
Too warm... Color shift... Too cold... Color sift... Just right?
Who the hell can tell?!?!
Color correcting in the wrong light temperature ...
Filtration packs!
Printing it again and again and again until your cones and rods were more like dodecahedrons...
your eyes were so off color balance you couldn't correct a kindergardener's finger painting...
But finally you get a 'Perfect Print' and it still looks like crap!
You make a 'final' print and your professor and peers shred it...
Hours later, Realizing, "who cares! A good portion of people are color blind anyway! And nobody has museum lighting in their homes! And if they hang it in a museum they'll probably hang it upside down!"
Marshalls oils and paint brushes.
Dodging and burning with a hangar and masking tape!
Using a print frame and realizing the blades are bent and all your prints are crooked!
Poking myself near blind with the focusing lupe, then knocking my head on the enlarger lens or pointy edge...
Bleeding on the print and thinking,
"...Nah, that'll never work..."
Cursing like Yosemite Sam... See above...
I would have given my soul to Christ long ago if I only had a "Healing Tool!"
Watching the sun set behind those damn trees, just when I finally figured out just the right exposure...
Looking at my prints and thinking,
"Damn the zone system! Damn the Zone System! Damn the Zone system!"
Watching my last strobe bulb smoke and flash-burst into flames as it fries the accidentally placed thumb grease.
The blissful peace when I realize the film or negative or expensive strobe kit or print or event I was hired to shoot but miss-exposed is gone forever into photographic eternity...
And my all time favorite...
A permanent thumbprint on my favorite chrome...
Ah, it was a much simpler time...
