24 SEPT 05
My father came home from Japan and brought me a camera. One of the few gifts I remember from him. I started taking pictures. Black and white, because I wanted to develop the film.
What I really wanted was a darkroom. I took a class. I made a darkroom for myself at home in the half-bath (a term I didn't know then). That my parents let me paint the walls and ceiling flat black amazes me now. I bought a cheap enlarger, trays, some tongs (never used them), a timer. I had to open up a folding table in there after I closed the door--then it all fit.
I was enthralled with this black room and the equipment and the chemicals--even the names: the Enlarger, the Fixer, the Stop Bath, the Safelight. Shaking the tray in the nearly dark, watching the image come up, faint at first and blurred by liquid. How the poems come now.
I never became skilled at the business of shooting, always needing so long to focus. There was rarely a chance (I felt!) to frame the image.
But I took pictures trying to see what I knew I didn't see already. It wasn't for remembering. It was more to be surprised by what I found in the negatives, afterward. Little things.
I wondered today, do people still use tri-ex? (I was devoted to grain.) A quick Google search yielded this: "If you are shooting your own photos, use Tri-Ex black-and-white film, make sure there is plenty of light, get close to your subject, and keep the background as simple as possible. Make sure the subject is doing something interesting, not just sitting at a desk." *
Shadow. Surprise. Reflection. Sometimes the surprise was just that the picture looked something like what I thought a picture should be. (A version of "photogenic.")
Q: What would illustrations of the inner life tell?
A: It was forbidden, but there was no wall.
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