Photography

To some people a picture is a touch away, people using their iPhone to get a picture to post on some sort of social media. But I often think people forget not too long ago- in my lifetime even- the majority of anyone taking picture used 35mm cameras.

The evolution of cameras in the past generation is incredible. Yet I think if you want to do photography as some sort of profession you should be able to develop your own pictures from film that you developed as well. It gives you much more of an appreciation for photography itself.  When you only have 20 shots on a roll of film, and need to get two different subjects on the same roll of film you have to make sure you get the picture just right. Then, when you go to develop the film you must make sure that you get everything in the dark room or dark room bag just right or you will expose your film and not be able to use any of the shots you have taken. This can be a very stressful process. Also while taking the shots you need an interesting composition, its even harder to obtain good composition with black and white film in a world of color. Hand developing pictures is even harder than hand developing film in my opinion. You have to make sure the enlarger is exposing for the right amount of time and that the filters are right before you make the whole picture. It’s a very tedious process but it is very rewarding.  

The next time you take a picture think of how far photography has come in the past decade or two.