In The Dark

I stood in a broom cupboard. Pitch dark. The weird tank thing in my hand? I rocked it back and forth. The fluids inside sloshed about. I counted. Keeping the rhythm. The broom cupboard smelled of chemicals. Strong, but not horrible.

That tank? A developer tank for 35mm negatives. I'd been through the faff of snapping open the film cassette. Loaded the film onto the spool. Added the right amount of developer fluid into the tank.

That's why I stood there, rocking the tank back and forth. Agitation helped the chemicals work.

The real treat was yet to come. No point being impatient. I was impatient anyway. Tapped my foot while I rocked the tank. Do it right, I told myself. You get one chance. Once that part was done, I'd have a set of negatives. Hang 'em up to dry. Then, print up a contact sheet and see what I had.

While I stood there in the pitch dark, my mind wandered over the photos on the film. 36 frames. I remembered every one of them. You did, because you had to think about the exposure triangle. These photos were shot on a Zenit E. No meter. I used a handheld light meter. Brilliant to use. A faff, but great.

The year? 1982. I was in the photography lab at school. We developed our own films under the watchful eye of our teacher, a keen photographer himself.

Here's the thing. Back then, photography was simple. Grab a camera. 35mm of course. Take photos on a roll of film. I used Ilford HP5 a lot. Develop them. Print up the ones that were any good.

It was brilliant. I do the same now. Well, nearly. Except now, I send my films to a lab. Let the pros do the chemical bit so I can focus on the photos. But film? Yeah, bang on. I don't hate digital photography. I just don't think it's proper photography, is all. Some fucking algorithm deciding how the photo should be. Nah. Not for me.

Using 35mm film means the halide crystals interact with the light in a chemical reaction. If I dial in shite settings, I get a shite photo. Simple. When it works? You get a real photograph. Grain, texture and reality.

I still remember standing in that broom cupboard, rocking that tank back and forth. Hoping I'd done everything right. Excited to see what photos I'd managed to take. There's no feeling like it.