Captured images
So many memories. I am of the age where I have embrace many and each one comes with a clear image. Either in my mind or in a photo album. The photo album was and is the best chance we have to remember what happened before. I come to this with a particular background. My mother had two cameras. A pair of brownie Hawkeye cameras that she had purchased before I was ever born. I was given one of them when I was very young. I cannot say that I made much use of it because the necessary film and processing costs far exceeded my allowance. By the time I arrived at university I had already learned the rudiments of working in a dark room. That interest and knowledge carried me through the next two decades. It is only because of that background that I can look at an old photo album and describe to you the process involved. By 1950 some local photo studios had processing machines. All the photos arrived in very well conceived stop snapshot albums. I think some of them are still in my parents possession. I came along when I could go to a local box store purchase the materials I needed to work in the darkroom go back and spend countless hours transferring from raw film to photos you get to hold in your hand. I believed that I had the key to the knowledge of the world. My sense of pride diminished somewhat when my grandmother explained that she also had done darkroom work a full two generations before my birth. For all of you modern youngsters who think that everything comes out of a digital file, believe me, things were not always so simple.
Read the rest of this entry »posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Captured images | 292 words
