For the Spring semester next year, I will finally get an opportunity again to return to the darkroom. It's been... 4 years since then? Sheesh. I feel like I forgot so much about everything in there. That being said, a lot of my old ideas will finally come to fruition, ones that I dearly wanted to do ever since high school. The only downside is the fact that I will pretty much only have access to the darkroom for 4 months, so I better make the time count.
I actually tried to scower the internet for local membership-based darkroom which anyone can use. I found this place at an adjacent city 30 minutes north, and they had a pretty good annual membership. I decided to visit them on their opening hours, and upon stepping in I was greeted with a cavalcade of various cameras all over this giant room. I forgot to mention-- they also resell and refurbish cameras. I sheepishly asked the unenthusiastic elderly man running the operation if the annual membership was still in effect. He told me "No, and we haven't since COVID. we no longer have the resources to do so and our room is filled with boxes of cameras." The elderly woman co-running the operation told me that the website hadn't been updated since 2018 and that he didn't know how to log in and change it back
At that point, I was a bit bummed, but understanding. COVID hadn't been nice to small businesses. I did, however, ended up talking to the elderly woman about photography gear, techniques, and even showed off photos. She gave some very valid criticism. I enjoyed my time there, and decided to not be a freeloader and purchase a camera from them. Left with an untested Canon Powershot S50. Bought a battery and it works flawlessly. Very well-made and usable, even for 2003. A nice little usable point-and-shoot to add to the collection, and I've been bringing it around with me to places to capture some interesting photos. I'll upload them here when I get the time.
Getting back on track... now with a darkroom locked in, I've been sketching up ideas for photo assignments to give myself.
One of my main ideas is called "Hall Monitor"-- a photo series where I go to dimly-lit hallways, office, and library rooms (particularly in my university) at very late hours and capture the desolate and quiet nature. There's something about walking around your university after dark... It's a cozy yet unnerving silence and desolate-ness that's very hard to replicate. I think the feeling is amplified in the Winter. It's worth noting that the photos shown on some of the main pages of this site are from the last self photo assignment I gave myself. I am hoping to do a thing where I change those photos every year.
There's also some things that do bug me about the photos shown on the main pages of my site... mainly compositional and exposure related issues that I didn't catch or hadn't prepared for. I think they're attractive photos, just some stuff that bug me. Also, they're from dusty flatbed scans, and I would rather scan high quality enlargement prints. I actually just bought myself a flatbed scanner for my desk, so maybe some fun scanning will take place for the site in the near future
Speaking of scanning, I added a new page to the website-- it's nothing much, but I thought I would share some cool stuff I sound interesting. No copyright infrigement intended... and I intend on making the descriptions more descriptive. It was also my first go at using MS Front Page to generate a gallery, so I think it looks fun.
Anyhow, that's that.