THE PHOTOGRAPHS SAY IT ALL

FOR MOST OF MY LIFE, TAKING PICTURES AND THEN DEVELOPING THEM IN A DARKROOM WAS A WAY OF LIFE FOR ME. I actually hung out a shingle and pretended to be in the business of taking pictures. It involved film that had a silver based coating that was sensitive to light. When "exposed" in a camera, a chemical reaction happened that had to be "developed" in a solution of more chemicals and the immersed in another solution that stopped the development and then sloshed around in another bath that fixed the image permanently. The result was a "negative" image. Light areas appeared dark and dark areal appeared light. Everything was reversed.

You can see this was a process that offered many places for personal preferences and creatively. That's what I loved about it. That negative would then be placed in a projector or enlarger and light sensitive paper would be "exposed" in much the same way that the film was in the beginning, producing a "positive" image. Then that would be developed pretty much as the film was. You probably have boxes of photographs that are the result of just such a process. All those negatives are likely in some trash bin or dump for they were about as interesting to look at as apple peelings.

It's a different world now. You pull out your cell phone and snap a picture with the camera that's built in it and come away with a photograph of higher quality than could have been achieved in the fanciest darkroom without the mess and expense. To say it's a different world is the number one champion understatement.

So I have this closet filled with darkroom stuff that I have tried to get rid of over the years that now is little more than useless baggage headed for the dump. It is of no use to me and likely to no one else. It's sad for me that after all these years, this equipment should be so useless. Specially as I had spent so many hours up to my elbows in that "wet" photography process.

Time marches on. The horse and buggy come to mind - the Amish notwithstanding. As a matter of fact the Amish themselves come to mind. Then there is the vacuum tube radio, the inner tube, the butter churn and wash board for good measure. We move on. Well - some of us do.

These days, I go out somewhere and take a few photos and when I get home they are already on my computer waiting to be manipulated or printed or shared. I have four digital devices. The pictures I take during an afternoon outing are almost instantly available on all of those devices before I get home. If that ain't magic I don't know what is.

I still recall, with a catch in my heart, the anticipation that excited us all on that sand bar on Thompson's Creek. I peered into the awkward viewfinder on that Kodak box camera saying something like: can you move a little over that way, and smile, please. We were all about sixteen and we knew it all and nothing at all. The photographs say it all.