My love of photography started in my sophomore year of high school when I took my first photography class. I’ve always enjoyed nature, so this was the main subject I took photos of. I think it’s fascinating that we can freeze a moment and capture it on a screen. In one of my photography classes though, we took it “old school” and developed our own film.
Everyone was required to use a film camera and take photos of any subject we wanted. We then learned how to develop the film using a darkroom. At first, I wasn’t very excited about doing this because it seemed boring and pointless since I knew I would never develop my own photos in the future. Plus, everyone uses digital cameras or phones to take photos now.
I wasn’t very keen on learning how to use the equipment in the darkroom such as the enlarger, so one of my classmates helped me each time I needed to use it. Dipping my photo paper in the chemicals was a bit more fun since I was able to watch my photos magically appear on the paper.
The next school year, I was in the AP Photography class, and we developed our own photos again. This time, I actually fiddled with the enlarger myself and became confident in using it. I understood the entire process of developing photos, and it was actually quite interesting. Unfortunately, this realization came to me more toward the end of the year, so I wasn’t able to develop as many photos as I would have liked to.
I recommend to anyone who is interested in photography to not skip the opportunity to develop your own photos in a darkroom. It’s a great experience, and one thing I enjoyed the most was experimenting with the developer. Our teacher put some in a spray bottle, so we could spray certain parts of our photo to make different effects such as drips and spots. With black and white photos, this gave the photo an even “older” look. Below is an example of this; one of my developed photos from high school!
If I could, I would go back to the beginning of my photography classes and master the darkroom from the very beginning. Be eager to learn even when the subject seems useless. I would have if I had known at the time. Hopefully, I can create my own darkroom at home one day though!
