03 July 2011

Film

Lately I have been trying to remember my old interests. I once used to play a bass guitar, take tons of photographs and work on my car. Fortunately, I seemed to have worked myself out of a job on the latter but the first two are do for a resurgence.

It's always been my philosophy that the best rain during a creative dry spell is to deliberately break your own artistic rules. I for one hate really kitschy photographs for example; "Holga App" iPhone photos on facebook are among the worst. To save this before it becomes a rant I will just say that I don't own an iPhone and that a Holga not a creative medium. Anyway, I thought about getting a digital camera and doing regular "photo blogging" but I just cannot bring myself to own a digital camera after so many years of devotion to my good friend D-76 process film. Also, I can't afford one.

However, I did find one artistic rule I can break for the sake of rekindling my inner photographer: paying someone else to develop my film. In the past I have only ever gotten my color film professionally developed simply because the chemistry for color film is absurdly expensive. 

Being that I live in NYC's most um, tan, Borough, it has been hard to find a reliable, nearby photolab that does not also sell Snapple and Tampons two aisles over. Cue the good ol' fashioned mail away photo lab. I remember my parents sending rolls to a company called "Seattle Film Works" back in the day but their prices are a bit higher than The Darkroom's.

So "The Darkroom" and a stranger's chemicals all over my film. Nervous of course, but excited to back "behind the lens."

Below is an excerpt from a previous rekindling expedition. I took my favorite lessons from high school advanced photography, (Gilbert Fastenaekens night photography and Man Ray's solarizations) and combined them thus:


Also evidenced is my econmic status at the time. Though this is a final print, it was made on a scrap. Waste not...


1 comment:

  1. "Being that I live in NYC's most um, tan, Borough, it has been hard to find a reliable, nearby photolab that does not also sell Snapple and Tampons two aisles over."

    You almost had my coffee coming out my nose.

    Painful side effects of laughter aside, I, for one, am pretty excited about this rekindling. How did you find The Darkroom?

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