It all started in my first photography class in high school. It was a class I took because I felt like it would be an easy choice, especially since the alternative was calculus.
I remember that first assignment, we were each assigned a vintage classic camera and were sent out to take pictures of high contrast. It all seemed simple, until the next step. Once we finished taking our pictures we just didn't send off the film to be developed, we had to do it all ourselves. For anyone who hasn't taken their film from camera, to blackout bag, to developing solutions, to processing in a dark room let me walk you through this really quick.
After capturing your images you now have to spool the film onto a roll that goes into a canister. This doesn't sound too hard, you just cut off the lead of the film, roll the film ever so carefully on the spool, by cranking the sides back and forth. You put the canister together so you can start adding the developing chemicals to develop the film. There is a catch here. You have to do it all in a blackout bag by touch only. No light can get in and you have to just hope you got it all right before you unzip the bag. One tiny misstep can result in a completely ruined roll of film.
Now that you have it all in the canister, you can unzip the bag that is when the chemical process starts. You have to add the agitate the chemicals in just the right order for a very specific amount of time. Once you completed every step you would pull the film out, give it one last rinse and then head into darkroom to develop your images from film to photographic paper. Again making sure to mix the chemicals correctly and giving each image a bath in the correct order to reveal the perfect finished product.
It certainly wasn’t as quick and painless as it is now with digital cameras, but the detailed effort made the good images feel that much more special.
Now back to that first assignment. I remember the excitement of pulling the film from the canister after taking my time to do every step. Ready to see the negatives of the images I so carefully captured. When I held that first roll of film up to the light it was black. Completely black. I failed. It broke my heart, took the air out of my sails.
Something went wrong somewhere along the way. But I wasn't ready to just give up. I was eager to try again, I figured I could only go up from here.
I was beginning a habit of being wrong. When I pulled my second roll from the processing container...it was...completely black. At this point I’m not sure if it was determination or fate that made me keep trying. But that third roll, I will never forget. When I pulled the roll from the processing container and I saw a perfect film roll. At that point something inside me just clicked. I couldn’t believe it had finally worked. I couldn’t figure out what I did differently, but that feeling of accomplishment was intoxicating. A fire deep in my soul was lit that day.
Fast forward, the semester was over and it was time to pick a new elective for the first half of my senior year. I jumped on advanced photography and would later finish out my senior year with a photography private study.
I would find myself skipping lunch to stay in the dark room.
Photography had this calming effect on me.
Not that I had a crazy childhood, on the contrary I had what I would consider a pretty privileged childhood. I had no reason to go looking for somewhere to escape.
Photography didn’t save me from some deep dark place. Instead it gave me clarity, something I didn't even know I craved. It allowed me to stop and appreciate what was around me.
At this point in my life I had this fleeting idea that maybe I would make a career of it and have my images hung in some fancy smancy gallery someday. A dream that felt more like a fantasy, like when a kid says they want to be a unicorn when they grow up. Instead of pushing towards that fantasy I quickly jumped on the bandwagon of photography was a hobby not a career.
But then....the summer before I left for college my grandparents bought me my own top of the line camera. So that little voice that has just told me photography was just a fantasy now said, hey double major you’ve got this!
That voice was wrong.
I tried the double major thing, with my second degree being a major in art. Art, me, the girl that could barely draw a stick figure on a third grade level.
My first art classes at Penn State broke me. I spent hours in the studio trying to figure out how to make my oil drawings look remotely close to my classmates. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on supplies and countless hours trying to will myself to be better at drawling, painting, and sculpture. It just wasn’t me. Almost as much as the elementary education degree I was working towards wasn’t completely me either. But that is a long story for another time, when whiskey is involved.
I ended up dropping down to one major which I changed often until I settled on a degree that I can honestly say I don’t particularly use. Sorry mom and dad. For me college taught me a lot about a lot, but I didn't have a degree that matched what I would find myself doing. I tried some other jobs and just kind of filled time. Leaving photography behind for the most part.
It wasn’t until years after college that I really picked up a camera again.
When my husband and I decided that we would spend some of our wedding money on a good digital camera so we could take pictures worthy of hanging on our walls while we honeymooned in Europe. It was on that trip that that little flame that was lit years ago sparked up again. I slowly started working my way back to photography. Taking some classes here and there. Focusing on refreshing the basics. I started to develop my own voice from behind the camera.
A voice that has transformed not only my view on the world, but also my identity.
I started shooting friends, then branched into business. And believe it or not enrolled in an Art School to get a major in photography. Yes I gave art school another go, this time went a thousand times better.
Believe it or not, my second senior year in college, the one in art school, at the end of the year they have a big spring show. Where everyone can summit pieces to be considered. And last May one of photographs hung in a fancy smancy gallery in San Francisco.
All because I didn't want to take Calculus.
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