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 :)