Dragging the past into the present
Way back when, if I wanted photographs, I took them. And I processed them, and I printed them. A perfect blend of technologies that were linked. I understood the process, and so I processed. A lot.
Fast forward, to the digital age. I have a lot of negatives, on file. The catch is that few other people really “get” the beauty of negatives, held at exactly the right angle to a light source; the positive image is small and full of character. Or grains, as we used to say. I’m forced to find a way to move from the analogue mode to the digital.
My plan involved using a slide copier and bellows, mounted to a digital camera back. Would have worked, should have worked, except for a small alignment flaw. With the clock ticking, I turned to YouTube, and found another great idea. Put the camera on a tripod, place the negative against a constant light source (like a digital tablet…) Photograph and process.
And so, this afternoon, I gathered my materials and went to work. Now, several hours (and a stiff neck) later, I have more than sixty photos, ready for a projected session this time next week. My audience won’t have unlimited attention, so I may just stop at this point, put together a few talking points, and call the job “done’. In all likelihood, I’ll never have to do something like this again in my lifetime.
Do I miss the “good old days”? Certainly. The darkroom work was very satisfying. Simply fine-tuning a digitized photograph is much less so. I could learn to do colour negatives, I suppose.
