Intro to Film

Artist Statement: For this assignment, I had to experiment with film for the first time. This assignment was intimidating at first because I had never done anything with film before and there were a lot of new things that I had to learn how to do. The most difficult part of this project was getting the film around the reel without looking. It was a very new process but with a lot of practice, I was able to successfully wrap my film around the reel in the bag. After this, I was able to develop my film, and make prints.

When taking pictures for this project, I didn't really have much in mind, I just took a bunch of pictures of my friends as we walked around the school. After I took all of my pictures, I went into the bag with scissors, the roll of film, a canister, a reel, and a can opener. I went through the process of unwrapping the film onto the reel and managed to make it pretty organized with no edges sticking through the reel. After this was complete, I put my real into the canister, gave it a rinse, and was then able to develop it. The developing process took a while and was very repetitive but it was not too bad. Once my film was developed, I went into the darkroom and made a contact sheet. This was really cool to me because it allowed me to see all of my photos. In the contact sheet, I was able to see that there were some parts of the film that was exposed to light, and I think this must have been due to the camera being opened at some point. For the most part, though, the images came out really cool. I was able to pick one that had good lighting and make an enlarged print with it.

I am really happy with how my image turned out and I think this project taught me a lot of new skills that I can use in the future. Now that I am more comfortable with developing images in the darkroom, I am even more excited to keep working in there. This project made me even more interested in photography because it is so cool to be able to develop your own film photos. I would love to make more prints next time I develop film rather than just one, but this project was a great introduction to film.