One of my friends is a photographer by trade. Like many, she’s gone digital, but she started out in the darkroom. She hasn’t used it for years, but when she heard that I dabble in photography (as I do with so many other things) she invited me down to get it going again.
I’m not a traditionalist at heart – anyone who knows me will tell you I’m a technogeek – but there some things are just better the old fashioned way. Black and white photography is one of them. There have been huge advances in digital, but you just can’t capture the range of grays or graininess of black and white pictures on a digital camera. And there’s something about the smell of a darkroom that can’t be beaten either.
Anyway, I went down to the darkroom just last week and developed some photos from my recent trip to Gettysburg. The whole town is surrounded by memorials to the soldiers who died there. There were cannons everywhere, and I couldn’t resist photographing them. It was dark and spitting with rain, but that just suited the atmosphere of the place somehow. This is my favorite picture from the bunch.
Cath lives just outside Cleveland, Ohio (well, somebody has to), she writes, takes photographs, reads and writes obsessively. Oh, and she speaks with a funny accent.
Hey Cath, loves old fashioned photography equipment, hearts black/white vs. color, to me they invoke a lot more passion than color–loves the photo of canon, feels as if I can touch it-
hugs
kimmi