Photography

So I finally developed my first film. Oh yes, the "Dark room" is reaaaalllly dark. As they say, hath ko hath nahi soojhta (So dark that one hand can't find the other) . But thankfully only one step in the whole processing is required to be done in that dark room: Loading the film. Its not that difficult a task. We practiced it in the classroom. It hardly took me 5 minutes then but today in ABSOLUTE darkness, it took me an hour and half. The rest of the processing just took half an hour. We actually put the roll in a processing tank especially built for film processing and process the film. This developing tank is pretty special as it allows the liquids/chemicals in but no light. At one point, just before fixing the negatives (which by the way is a very crucial step, after this step you can bring the negatives in light) the top pipe of the cylinder dropped (from where the liquid is injected) and I thought all the film inside the developing tank must have been exposed. I continued with the rest of the procedure with my fingers crossed. Those were the longest 30 minutes ever. With all the anxiety, negativity, hope and prayers and cursing myself for being so clumsy, it just took forever to go through those 30 minutes. You can imagine my relief and the big smile when I saw that the negatives actually looked like they were supposed to and not a transparent reel.

The next step was to cut those negatives in order to keep it in the archival sheets. I never knew how difficult it was to cut those negatives. Assuming they are such a thin strip of roll, you would think it would be easy to cut them straight but its not. That slippery surface combined with the knowledge that a slight change can ruin the negative forever, makes it so much difficult to cut those tiny films into a strip of 5 negatives.

I still have to take the prints. Luckily, our professor, Jason Francisco was around when I finished with my film today and he had a look at my negatives. He was very impressed by the results, not the developing procedure but the actual pictures. He said that I should be proud of them. May be he says that to every student in order to encourage them but it certainly did make my day. The two pictures he was referring to were the ones I took on Sunday. On Sunday morning, I had this impulse of going to local farmer's market for taking some snaps despite being sick. As I was parking my bike, there was a little girl playing by the statue while her parents were trying to park the bike too. I asked their permission to take a few shot of hers and they happily agreed. She kept moving all the while so I took about 5-6 shots till I finally got what I wanted. Her face in the front while the statue at the back. But after taking the picture I realized that I should have actually asked her as well before taking her pictures. Well ethically I did the right thing by asking the parents but she isn't a property of her parents and has her own mind about whether she is comfortable with me taking her pictures. I guess that was the reason she kept moving. She wanted to hide behind the statue but I guess the attraction of statue was bigger than her discomfort.

This has been my biggest trouble with photography: Taking pictures of stranger. Whether I should ask their permission first and then shoot or not. At times this might distort the scene/ situation I want to capture. I asked Jason, our professor about this and he said that it depends on what you feel comfortable with. It is good to talk to the subject of your photograph. Usually people are curious about what you are doing and not offended with it. If you think this will distort your situation then talk to them after taking the picture. Don't avoid talking to them. And the best thing he said that you would make people/subject of your photograph comfortable if you are comfortable with what you are doing.

Thats what I was experimenting on Sunday and it was an amazing experience. I talked to strangers, took pictures and felt very comfortable doing it. Being the introvert I am, I never thought I could ever do it. In fact when I was returning from the farmer's market, a lady was behind me. I turned back once and she smiled and said I am following you. She had flowers in her hand so I smiled and said,"And your weapon is flower?". She laughed and we crossed the road together. As I started riding my bike, she said, "Have a nice day". It was really a strange experience for me. Everyone around noticed me taking the pictures and instead of being offended or anything, they felt comfortable talking to me. The weirdest thing that they found about me wasn't that I was taking their pictures but that I was not using a digital camera! The life is so strange..