Film..Digital..anything else?
Photography has been part of my life for more than 50 years and this blog has covered some of that ground.
At the Scottish Games last weekend I was reminded that during the transition from cranking a roll of film through a camera, and now, marveling at digital speed and clarity, there also was an intermediate step. It's called
Polaroid.While today's digital IS instant, Polaroid started with
60 second black and white. You waited for them to slowly, eerily appear on the piece of paper you tugged out of the camera and then waved in the air to make it dry faster.
In fact, my first time using it was in the 1950s and you actually spread a sticky, waxy coating over the picture to give it a "glossy" shiny look. Wow. Couldn't get any better than THAT!
The first ones I created even were trimmed with a deckle edge so they looked closer to what you picked up a week later after dropping your film off at Walgreen's.
You still can buy a Polaroid camera on
e-bay but I believe they stopped making the "magic" film.
Labels: 1950s, 60-second pictures, black and white, deckle-edge, e-bay, Polaroid, Walgreen's
In my photo darkroom....
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In this, the computer age, most people have a digital camera. Or even a cellphone that takes digital pictures.
The
Kodak Company has made film for a 100 years - and was stunned by
Polaroid for a while - but continued making film for cameras and X-Rays and other uses but eventually even they conceded that digital rules.
Film is basically a roll of celluloid coated with silver that changes when light hits it and, of course, color film and processing is a bit more complicated.
Machines were made to collect the leftover silver in the developing process and newspapers, photo processors and other large companies made a tidy sum from this reclaimed treasure. But, now it's all mainly digital.
But, back in the 1950s when I got into photography, I learned you could buy simple equipment to process and develop your black and white film
"at home." Just find a dark spot to set up your photo lab. I worked in mine all through high school.
After you developed your film in total darkness, you put the negative into your enlarger and, under a yellowish
"safe light," made enlargements on light sensitive photo paper. After sloshing them through several trays of chemicals you had mixed, you washed and dried them. Simple.
No more dropping off rolls of film at the neighborhood Walgreen's and waiting a week to come back by to pick up the envelope of small prints.
Now my education continues as I learn more about computers and Napster and Anti-Virus programs and blogging and iPods and Macs.
Oh, and being grateful I never bought any
Kodak stock.
Labels: Base Photo Lab, darkroom, Kodak, Napster, Polaroid, Walgreen's
Photography has been part of my life for more than 50 years and this blog has covered some of that ground.
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