Black and white walk

The weekend was cold and rainy. Black and white kind of weekend, no colours outside, all damp and grey.

No sun, no reason to get out of the house.

However, camera in one hand and film in other made me go outside to see if there's anything worth capturing.

Actually, I needed more practice with film developing so I bundled up and stepped outside.

Sprinkles of rain somehow made me think of home, because I know that my friends are experiencing sprinkles of sea right now, sunbathing at some beach, somewhere on the southern part of Croatian coast.

Meanwhile, here in Toronto, I'm doing my best in this Canadian weather. There's a place close to me with a little marina. Kind of a hidden place with no people, perfect for a short walk. Always lots of animals around. No walkers, no bicyclists or runners. Just boats and birds.




Couple of weeks back I've been there, for the same reason, and there was a swan, sitting comfortably in a nest, guarding the eggs.

This weekend, she was still there, at the same spot, with her little offspring. Reminded me of an "Ugly duckling" story. There are more eggs there, maybe next time there's going to be a whole bunch of little cygnets.

Also, lots of ducks and geese. As I was walking, on my left side there were geese with little goslings, nibbling on grass and enjoying the peace which was broken only by the sound of my shutter. 

While I was trying to shoot the goslings (with the camera, just to be clear), I've became aware that there's whole army of other geese on my right side, waddling toward me, making sure the moms and little ones stay protected. Canadian geese are huge, and I was obviously outnumbered, so I picked up my stuff and carried on, leaving them at peace. 

The mean birds are everywhere, and I watched them messing with the swan and fight each other for food. Or for something else, who knows.

Black and white walk, among black and white boats, stepping into puddles and thinking about black and white stuff in life. And how white can become black easily. And the other way around. 

I kind of felt black and white myself. 

It looked like it's going to start raining again (and I finished the film) so I decided to turn around and go back home to my black and white cat. 

Setting up the dark room

It all started with a gift. A friend, older gentlemen who often comes by, visited a week ago and left me a box full of old photo equipment explaining how he doesn't use it anymore and wants to clear up the house. At the moment, I'd never have guessed that this will bring me to a whole new level of experimenting.

My eyes opened wide and my heart raced while I went thru the box and among other things, I found an '84 Canon T70. 

When I felt the weight of it in my hands, it instantly reminded me of my childhood and of photo cameras my father used to have back when I was little.

It was really interesting reminding myself on how to even use it. It might sound funny, but last time I used camera with film was probably when I was 14 or so.  I totally forgot about how to put the film in it (it's not rocket science as I thought when I was a kid). I totally forgot about how you need to rewind the film at the end. And having a limited number of shots made me felt constrained at first, as well as not knowing whether the shot was even successful or not! However, all that sounded like lots of fun.

So, after I played with it for a day or two, while wondering how will the photos look like, somehow I thought it might be fun to try and develop them myself. That was a long shot at first, but as I kept researching, I realized it's actually doable. All I need is an adequate space, some chemicals, trays, paper and a photo enlarger. 

And film. 

And safe light. 

And clothes pegs and lots of other knick-knacks that happen to be useful (but you figure out that after you start).

It was Sunday when I woke up with the definite decision that I'm doing it. Went back to Craigslist and Kijiji links from night before and set up a meeting with a guy to buy the enlarger thing. I went to buy chemicals and found out that it's not that easy to find them, especially on a Sunday afternoon (however, I did find a great store next day, that had everything I needed in one place and with very kind and helpful staff - FilmPlus, close to Dupont and Lansdowne)

So, after experimenting with chemicals and finding the right alternatives (cause I couldn't buy them on Sunday), I ruined my first film by exposing it to safe light (wrongly I assumed it's safe). I tried again and ruined my second film with bad use of chemicals.

The third film was half decent, but it was still not developed properly and ended up being too dark. Accordingly, the photographs were lousy too. But it was a beginning!

So next day I bought all the right ingredients and the fourth film was actually quite good, due to proper chemicals.

(I also bought that little box for developing film the next day; very, very helpful.)

So the second day, the second batch of photographs ended up being pretty good. I'm still getting used to the camera and experimenting with lenses, but it's exciting and very inspiring. There's still stuff that I might need to make my life easier, but it works! And I'm happy.

Also, still need to figure out the easier way to open the film container, instead of busting it with the screwdriver.

All in all, an amazing thing to do! Lots of work and waiting, but there's something special in it. Maybe it is so for me, and not so much for the real photographers who actually did this when I was still in diapers. But there's the right time for everything and good old stuff are sometimes the best. And even though it'll never be like a digital photo, it makes me smile :)