Oct 10, 2011

Developing pictures in the kitchen with dad

Many of my adult loves were started at home in my youth. I have just written about one of my scouting experiences that started me on my lifelong trail of scouting. Well my purpose in relating this story is to tell how my love for photography began.

My father had in the attic some old wooden ammo boxes that had a light in the bottom of them and a button in the top near where there was cut out a small hole of about 5 x 7 inches. I looked at these many times as grew up and especially as I would be assigned to go into the attic to organize and clean it. When I left home my parents gave me those two ammo boxes and the other small wooden frames that went with them. I also received the equipment that went with them I had turned out to be the one family member interested in taking pictures and who had also been most interested in using that equipment as I was growing up. My own children have never shared that interest though and one summer while cleaning out our attic may have given them to the trash. I have been unable to find much of it since that day even though it may still be here somewhere. I often wish I had given it to a museum or something especially since now the computer has eliminated the need for such equipment.

I must tell you though why it was all so special to me. When I was very young and this would have been around the age of four to six I remember my father getting out that old equipment and setting up in the kitchen his makeshift darkroom. He would remove the film form the Brownie instamatic that later became mine also and in the extreme darkest corner of the bathroom put it into a small container where he would then develop it. After it dried he would cut the film into separate negatives and place one of them with a piece of photo paper into one of the 5x7 wooden plates that would fit over the hole in the ammo box while also holding the paper and the negative tightly together while the light would go through the glass front and expose the paper.  The next part was what had really caught my attention at that young age. He would remove the paper and under the dim light of a red globe put it down into the developing solution. As I would watch I could see the image slowly come form the light of the paper and into full view. It was so magnificent to watch.  I loved to see it each time it happened. I spent many hours later in my teenage years in a darkroom developing pictures for the High School Yearbook. Then after I went to college I bought a small enlarger and continued to develop pictures in any dark room that I could set up. I also continued after I was married to use our master bathroom as a darkroom where I could develop my own black and white pictures. Now however the equipment sets idle and I use the computer to do all of the special effects that were rather difficult to do with an enlarger and darkroom. I still love thinking about the process but find my time to do it gone even as the technology to do it slowly ebbs away as well.

Another version:

Developing pictures in the kitchen with dad

One of the best memories I have from my childhood was being in the kitchen late at night with dad. We would do it late at night because what we were doing needed to have no lights. I loved to watch dad as he made pictures for us. They were black and white and it was so fun to see the image as it came slowly out of the white paper and we were only able to see it because of the red light bulb dad had put into the light socket in the kitchen. Dad had an old wooden ammo box that had a hole in the top and a light mounted in the bottom with a switch near the hole at the top. He would take a piece of paper from a box where it was wrapped in black paper to prevent light getting to it during the day. He would then rewrap the rest of the paper and put it into the box and replace he lid before doing the next step. He never accidentally exposed the paper that way. Then he had a wooden frame with glass on one side and a wooden back that was removable so he could place the negative next to the glass and the paper with the emulsion side next to the negative. He would then replace the back and clamp it into place and then put the glass side down over the hole in the ammo box. The hole was the exact size needed to put the frame on it so no light would leak around the sides and still expose the paper. He would then press the switch and turn on the light and then count for several seconds before releasing the switch. He would remove the paper from the frame and then immerse it into a developing chemical in the sink. That was when we could see the image appear on the paper. He would rub it and move it around in the chemical until all of the exposed parts were completely developed. He then would wash the paper and then place it into a Fixer solution that would help the photo remain in a black and white state rather than turning a light brown in a few years. I really had a lot of fun doing that and it was no wonder when several years later when asked to be the yearbook photographer it was a perfect fit since I already knew how to develop the images needed for the yearbook. I continued to do it for several years after our marriage as well until the computers took over and it could be done outside of a darkened room and even in complete daylight even though that tended to create some issues as well. I have always loved photography and think that it must have stemmed from those nights way back during my youth in the kitchen with dad.