The last time I was in a dark room was in 1993 or 1994. It was my second or so year attending Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. I’d just become engaged to a extraordinary woman and beauty who I’d hoped to spend the rest of my life with. And I’d just signed up for my first photography course, back in the day when digital didn’t exist, and I was so dirt poor at the time I had to borrow my fiance’s Nikon K1000 35mm camera and her text book just in order to take the class, which was already a bit beyond my means as it meant I needed to regularly purchase and develop film in order to pass.
While I have a handful of scanned pictures from that class scattered around my hard drives and a folder of colour slides yet to be scanned, I remember my love for sharing my photography in front of my peers (something I really haven’t done before or since), I haven’t developed film or enlarged and developed pictures from them until this weekend. I’m lucky enough to be close not only to Blue Moon Camera and Machine, one of the best camera shops in the U.S., but a nearby studio called Franklin Foto which provides all the tools and training necessary to develop, print, and scan photos.
The class is over. I’ve developed a roll of black and white film, printed up one portrait from it, and another from a roll of 120 I shot in Prineville a few months back. I have three weeks left to take advantage of their facilities and you bet I will!
Here are the two shots I enlarged and framed today!
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