History In a Can

It’d been sitting on my desk for some time. It also sat on my desk in Michigan, Germany, and Kuwait. But today, I was looking at it a little more intently. The news that Kodak might not be around much longer brought this roll of film more to the forefront of my attention. It had been so long; I didn't know what images were on the roll, or even if they were still viable.

When my dad was stationed in Germany, he was heavily into photography. He had his own darkroom set up in the apartment he shared with my mom. There was nothing he talked about much, but now and then I’d come across boxes full of black-and-white pictures that were obviously self-developed and printed. I was told he stopped printing his own photos at home when the enlarger got knocked off the table and destroyed. I never asked him, so I have no way of knowing. What I did ask him was to teach me how to take pictures and develop them. 

Fortunately, the base we were at had a photo lab in the recreation center. So, we bought some film, took some pictures, and then went to the rec center to develop and print them. By the end of the day, I had 10 photos that were worth keeping that had survived the manual photo process. I also got to hang out with my dad all afternoon. 

He eventually gave me his old 35mm camera to replace the 120mm fixed-focus camera I had been using. The Agfa he gave me had a built-in rangefinder, but it was still hit or miss if I could get the subject in focus. I worked hard at it, burning up a couple of rolls of Kodak Tri-X film a week. Eventually, I got interested in other things and set the camera aside.

When I was stationed in Germany, I picked up my camera again because there was a camera shop right across the street from the dorm where I lived. I used to walk through the aisles and drool over the equipment. I eventually bought a fully manual Pentax camera and started taking pictures. Black-and-white got boring quickly, so I moved on to shooting with Kodachrome and having to pay somebody to develop it. Photography can be an expensive hobby. I got back into black-and-white, including processing my own pictures when I was in Berlin. The rec center there had not only a darkroom but a full studio, so I started shooting pictures of people. 

Later, when I went to Guam, I taught a course in photography that included darkroom processing of black-and-white film. It was a lot of fun, and I had full access to the equipment anytime I wanted. I was still using my trusty Pentax. 

Eventually, I passed the camera on to my son, and I bought myself a Nikon. Actually, I bought two — one digital, one film. I still use those when I want to take a serious picture with creativity over and above what my phone will allow me to do.

Hearing that Kodak might go away, I was pushed to take the roll of film in and get it developed. Surprisingly, some frames contained images good enough to see. As you can tell, light leaked into that camera canister and gave the photos a halo effect you see around the edges of pictures. As for when and where they were taken, in Venice around 2003. That means the film had been around waiting to get developed for right at 23 years. I’m impressed any image showed up at all. I expected to get a note back telling me they couldn’t print the pictures because there was nothing to print. Getting actual photos back was a pleasant surprise.

I think maybe I need to break out my Nikon and throw in a roll of film and then go take some pictures. It would cost too much to set up a darkroom, so I will do the developing, but that’s okay.

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