So overall I think I really learned a lot throughout this quarter. Things such as how to work with only two colors (black and white), how to roll up (in the dark) and prepare your film strip to be developed, how to change the settings for each and every thing you do in a photo with an enlarger, how to burn and dodge your photos (a.k.a make them lighter/darker) and what chemicals not to pour down the drain, hahaha.
But trust me, there's so much more to this whole film B&W photography thing that I have yet to learn, but I plan on taking the next two classes anyways.
Sam, our teacher, was an awesome teacher to have, one of the best. And not to mention an awesome person just to be around in general. He will never make things really complicated, he'll will always try to work something out with you on anything, even if It means to change up an assignment to your persona preference. He makes all the difficult stuff seem not so difficult by making a funny comment on it and/or just making It sound more exciting. And he always gave me extra time on my rolls of film because he understands how used to digital photography I am, and how little patience I have. He Is definitely a little kid at heart with a very funny-unique personality.He's just plain out and simple, awesome, haha. :)
I really enjoyed spending time with my mentors when it would be just us working in the darkroom, that happened a lot cause I'd always stay way later then everyone else during "open darkroom." There were a total of four mentors we had in our class alone, which is a lot compared to usually only having one-two mentors per class. There names were Rosko, Danika, Joy and Walter. I thought Walter was by far the most helpful mentor out of the pack, although I had some pretty interesting conversations with Rosko when he actually was there. And then one of the other mentors I absolutely just loved, Joy, I swear that lady was never in a bad mood, she always made everyone laugh, all the time. She was always just so...joyful!!! :D
But in the end, I think the most valuable thing I learned in these past few months was something that I have very little of, something called patience. Just standing there, waiting, waiting and more waiting. Changing, fixing, throwing out, waiting, waiting.... It literally drove me insane for awhile. Seeing the pictures show up in the developer was the only thing that kept me encouraged enough to wait wait and wait. Everything else sucked without the simple click of a button, hahaha. Although I'd have to say the next thing I liked most about this quarter Is the amazing photos I got out of it. I mean, even though It's not that many photos I got to develop, probably only less then ten, for some reason It made them all that much specialer to me. I just really love the quality of these photos, how the blacks are the blackest blacks you can ever see. It amazes me and now I think I know why people still spend so much time developing photos In the darkroom. :)
