Failing to fail (a film story)
I’ll be honest, I love film photography, not in an exclusive way, but as an outlet to keep my photography grounded, as a way to appreciate beauty in its imperfections, as a hobby more or less. Funny thing is, I belong to a generation whose records of life have been printed on 4x6 format pictures bound in thick photo albums, yet never interested, nor caring about the art and the curiosity of the medium. Now, much older a man, all that changed a few years ago, after my father-in-law rewarded my early efforts in photography entrusting his Pentax K1000 to me.
No matter whatever new cameras come along, regardless the advances in technology from different camera manufacturers, even despite the fact of my love for Fujiflm cameras, or the Nikon D700, or my old Pentax K5 for the images they produce, still, I have to go back once in a while and shoot a roll of film.
Oh my, I love it. It has taught me so much about light, metering, exposing, composing, taking my time, or taking no time. I love not knowing the end result, I don't mind the waiting, and enjoy the process of scanning the film, editing the pictures using Lightroom and Negative Lab Pro, the whole process. But there is one thing I can't do, what I consider a capital sin, perhaps the mark of an impostor… I am afraid to develop my own film, I am afraid of failing at it, and I accept the fact that all good argumental reasons to not do it is just excuses.
Not sure where the fear comes from. I have allowed myself to fail miserably in everything regarding film, and I have learned so much from those failures, but taking the chance to develop my own film, no way. Understand this, I live in Panama, only one person I know develops film as a service to hobbyists like myself, my friend Vladimir, and either I ask for his services, or the other choice I have is to send to rolls to the Darkroom Lab in US. What this means is that between shooting the film and getting it developed, it could take a good couple of weeks. I know I am missing all the fun of developing, but I think I have been a coward about this, I have not allowed myself to fail on this respect, and surely I am missing great important lessons because of this.
So, this is the truth, I am afraid of failing at it, and I think is time to man up and give this a try. I am done with excuses. I'll go look at what I need to purchase to do it myself, truth is it is not expensive. Black and white film materials to start with. I have to learn to do this thing, and perhaps master it, who knows. Only then I feel better about using external services, not because I fear doing it myself, but because I choose to do it that way.
To the following pictures, my thanks to Noise Lab and Vladimir for keeping me honest about my possibilities in film photography. These pictures belong to that long term project about night film photography I wrote about a couple of months ago. Hope you like them.
