haunting

Shoot. Develop. Print. Film Camera Experience

| Sheree

I finally got to see the magic happen.

I was gifted a voucher for a ClassBento creativity class last Christmas. And I’m just getting around to using it today as I attended a photography class with Daniel Dabrowski.

I’ve wanted to experience the dark room and developing my own photography for decades. So I was super excited to finally fulfil this dream.

I used a ME Super Pentax 35mm camera. Daniel gave me some instructions around the camera – aperture, shutter speeds, the light and composition.

And then I was let free to take images in the park. I was in The Meadows, Edinburgh. It was dry but grey. But I loved the opportunity, the freedom to roam and snap.

The light is everything.

Once I got 36 images it was back to get the film out of the camera off the spool and developed.

I learnt so many new things that I’ll probably forget but I did learn to do it all in the dark. Feeding the film into a reel to be placed a canister so is light protected. Then adding the chemical to the special quantities needed for the film. Shaking gently for certain times and letting it stand. Hanging up the film reel to dry. Yes. There are images captured on the film. No duds. We have something to work with. Relief.

So many steps in the process of developing your own film and you can get into a focused rhythm, a meditative magic. It’s such a beautiful dance. Another experience where I felt as if I’d stepped out of time.

All that mattered was what was right in front of me. Witnessing the images appear. Shadows, ghost, haunting upon the papers.

Photo credit: Dan Dabrowski

I look forward to continuing the practice.

Find the Good – Day 18

| Sheree

I’ve been thinking of moving to the Highlands, buying a small cottage by a loch and swim every morning.

There’s a river too, that haunts the glen, between my cottage and the mountains. I feel it, breathing within the shadow of mountains.

I know this is not just a pipe dream. I know someone who’s done it, made the move across the border, living a blessed life.

I’ve been thinking of an open fire where I’d bake bread with the sun rise and when ready sit sit out on the porch with thick slices, warm and buttered. Dripping butter and the air smelling like home.

My home.

I’m thinking there’s one village store miles away. I walk every other day for exercise. On the way, I bird spot. Blackbird, moorhen, blue tit, eagle.

Small talk with the store owner might be difficult after long moments of silence in my cottage by the loch. In the silence I can hear myself better.

Being a water woman and a mountain woman, I will welcome the solitude and the haunting rolling out before me as nothing would hold me back.