The Darkroom…continued

(see posting The Darkroom…July 15^th, 2006)

Camera Obscura ( Go into a very dark room on a bright day. Make a small hole in a window cover and look at the opposite wall. What do you see? Magic! There in full color and movement will be the world outside the window — upside down! This magic is….to read more: http://camera-obscura.mindbit.com/ and an additional link here if you’re interested http://camera-obscura.mindbit.com/ )

It was quite fascinating to see the world left to right on a twin lens camera, there was something esoteric about the image and its connection to real life. In photography and to a certain extent in drawing or painting, a certain amount of darkness is needed. A lot of what we see with our eyes has a direct relation to the camera obscura.. And the world begins upside down and from darkness to light. Photographs, at least many of them, are actually a concept envisioned in the mind, given physical attributes by the use of light . Darkness to light.

I remember the first time I used a darkroom. The smell of photo chemicals notwithstanding, I was completely enthralled with images appearing on photographic paper, slowly but surely revealing themselves to my eyes. From dark to light. I remember my young twin boys wondering what I was doing in my makeshift darkroom in one of my two bathrooms at home. They asked me if they could go in there with me (to see what dad was up to). I did not think this was a good idea because as you may know, the attention span of children is short. If they were going to in the darkroom with me, they would have to endure the minutes of complete darkness and waiting for the image to show up.

I finally agreed and took them both in there with me, you know what happened don’t you? Within five minutes the whole thing was wayyyyyyy tooooooooo long for them. They wanted out, only the photo paper was not ready for me to open the door and expose it to light. Well after much haranguing, I let them out. From darkness to light. Oh well, lesson learned. Of course my beautiful wife was also getting sick of the smell and the mess (I later would transfer those skills to the kitchen J ). The darkroom saw its last day and on we moved to digital photography. Only my darkroom is a computer now. Photo manipulation is done with a color calibrated monitor in guess what…a darkened room.

Still, with digital photography, there is some paper involved if you use your printer. But everyone can watch now as we trasnform bits and bytes to some rendering of our liking. Turning on the light will not ruin your image. Also in the matter of taking a photograph, it’s not just a matter of pointing and clicking (digital photography does afford us the time to take more images than before). Although, sometimes that’s exactly what is needed (the family vacation shot, sport action shots, the decisive moment, etc.). Some memorable photos, those that have the magnetism that draws you to see them, look at them, examine them, time and again, are made not taken. From darkness to light. This whole thing is going to lead somewhere, I promise. Then we will perhaps understand more so the need for darkness and the darkroom (it needs to come back in our lives). To be continued….