My Experience With Film Photography

I was a child who grew up on TV and movies. Every time I watched a scene of someone taking photos with a giant SLR, then later messing about in a darkroom, I wanted to replicate what they were doing. Watching images on a seemingly blank piece of paper appear right before your eyes, the entire process was amazing to me.

My family was way too poor for us to cough up a bunch of money every time I wanted to get a new hobby, and my school did not have a photography program. I had to wait a while before I got the chance to buy all of my own equipment and set up a make-shift darkroom in my bathroom. I highly advise anyone interested in film photography to NOT do what I did. The chemicals involved in developing are super dangerous, and you need proper ventilation. Every time I set up my darkroom, I had to block out the window and the door with garbage bags and tape, then lug that giant enlarger around. What a pain.

Teaching myself wasn't easy, and the internet wasn't as full of easily accessible information as it is now. I bought a bunch of rolls of film and blindly hit the shutter button while recording f-stops and shutter speeds, hoping that some of the photos would actually take. Unfortunately, only about 3 photos per roll would actually take, while the rest were just left blank when developed. However, I'm super proud of those 3 photos per roll.

After the rolls were developed, I set up my trays full of developing chemicals, and used my enlarger to expose the negatives to the photo paper. I had almost no idea what I was doing. I was winging it from step one based on things people had told me, the little I was able to find on the internet, a couple of books, and from what I had seen in movies. Nevertheless, I was still very excited to develop my first photo. I dropped the undeveloped paper into the developer tray and agitated it slightly. The most amazing thing happened, my photo started to appear, and of course I was so excited that I rushed through the next couple of trays just so that I could see it in actual room light. As you might imagine, the photo didn't come out great and I was exhausted from the work put into setting up that space. Probably also extremely loopy from inhaling all of those chemicals. Again, don't be like me.

It was a great experience overall. I was happy that I had finally made one of my childhood dreams come true, even if it was a very expensive and unhealthy one.

Below is my favorite photo that I managed to snap, which was scanned and edited digitally to get some decent contrast.