The F-Stops Here

I’ve been switching some files from one computer to another and in the process I somehow have managed to loose this amazing entry I wrote while I was sick, which I swear was a masterpiece. (The computer ate it!) You know how the muse is upon you during the rarest times…after a couple shots of tequila, 2 beers and a jell-o shot, or that time that you had an earache the size of Texas. I guess it worked a nerve that heightened my writing abilities or demoted other abilities that allowed the more eloquent writer in me to emerge.

I remember this one time (in band camp) writing an entry while on a chloraseptic high. It was words upon words of just amazing verbiage on how even on a high, Dupree and Me is still incredibly boring.

Where was I? Oh yes, so I lost (or have misplaced) my entry along with my exported Firefox bookmarks. Sad, really. It was really an entry describing my awe of taking this black and white film photography class. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it, it was fabulous.

Instead of trying to remember what I wrote, I thought I’d write five things I’ve learned so far about my film photography class:

1. I may know how to shoot pictures, but when asked on how to do something, I have no clue how to but my actions into words. I use, “that thing-a-ma-bobber button, yeah that one” a lot
2. In order to develop b/w film you have to reel the film in the canister in complete darkness. Unlike color film, where you can have that red stripper light on in the room, (brown-chicken-brown-cow…hehe).
3. The 40-year-old canister that was given to me by an amazing film photographer to bring me luck in the class really IS a canister and not a soup can like I had previously pondered. (“I am *SO* not taking this on my first day of class, what if all the OTHER kids make fun of me?”)
4. I can’t explain it or really make any sense of this, but the smell in the darkroom is oddly intoxicating…in a good way. It’s not like “apple-pie-smell” good. It’s more like “old-stuffy, classic theater, someone-famous-once-sat-here-smell” good. You catch my drift.
5. When going through the revolving darkroom doors I like saying, “To the bat cave!”