Grief

I was visiting my family last weekend in Spokane, WA and had the opportunity and time to go through some of my things from years and years (and years) ago. One of the things I found was this photo. Way back in the days before I decided to become a Librarian, my profession of choice was photographer. I took several classes - one of them being a darkroom class. This was a photo that I took for that class (1992). It was shot with my beloved Pentax P30t (which I still have and use!) I wish I could remember which film I used and which paper I used. I do remember buying the paper because I wanted lots of grain. But now that I am back into film photography and print making I don't understand what kind of paper that would be. I have so much more to re-learn!

This is a photo of my grandmother on the day of my grandfather's funeral. They were married for 50 years and were in love the entire time they were married. She died a year after he did. I feel a little bad for taking this photo. I didn't ask her first, I just shot it. I captured a moment and when I look at it makes my heart hurt because I can see the pain of losing her husband in her eyes. Was it right for me to do this? I don't know. 

Paris in Black and White

When I visited Paris in September I decided to bring four rolls of Kodak Tri-x with me - one roll for each day. I am not sure what made me decide to bring black and white film of all things, but I am really glad I did. I knew I was going to take my darkroom class eventually and in the back of my mind I decided that I wanted to develop this film myself. So I stuck it my desk drawer until this past March. It was a delight to develop this film after having visited several months ago. It was fun to relive the memories of being there! I've also been printing many of the prints which has also been fun. The last time I was in the darkroom the other person in there was also printing something from when he visited Paris. It was really cool to compare stories.

Film used: Kokak Tri-x Camera used: Pentax P30t