Fun in the Darkroom *-*

I had the greatest evening yesterday! ^-^ I had a darkroom lesson at uni from photosoc. I was there with richard, a committee member, and meila another photosoc member. Richard explained that it is all in the preparation, because developing photos by hand requires good timing and very little light >.<

First he explained me how to develop the film. Meila had already developed her film before coming to the darkroom, so she just watched me do it... or rather hear me do it ^-^ First I tried the procedure with a film that could be destroyed and that went fine. The trick is, really, to have only the things you need in front of you and know exactly where everything is. Because when you take the film out of the round holder thingy (>_<) the light has to be OFF! And believe me, it gets really dark in the darkroom XD

Okay so, my first try went fine and then I did my actual film and luckily I didn't screw anything up :D Once you have the flim on a special spindle and then in this dark holder, you can turn on the lights again ^-^ And then the chemicals are added, one after another for certain periods of time depending on the film.... I still have to engross myself in all that a bit :)

So... while my film was developed and hung up to dry, we started doing some prints with Meila's film. All the stuff we use to print is just amazing! There is this large machine called the enlanger that is used to shine the right amount of light on a photographic paper and then the paper goes through about the same process as the film. First is goes into the developer, then the stop and then the fix. It's just like in the movies, a room lit in red safety lights and taking the paper out of the chemical bath with tongs and placing it into the next bath XD It's great! ^-^

So I had a great night yesterday. I learned loads and printed my first ever picture, on my OWN!! :D It is a pic of my mom! when we were at the osbourne house on the isle of wight in january 2009. I hope to print some more pictures of the film I developed, but I think I will ask Richard to help me one more time, because I wouldn't want to ruin any of the equipment *-* So, that's my story about yesterday night.

On valentines I'm going out for diner with my friends XD We're going to a lebanese restaurant! It'll be so YUMMY! ^-^ more stories about that and pictures will follow :D