Black and White

          I love film. Black and white, especially. If I could, I'd spend countless hours in a darkroom making prints and developing film. 35mm is all I have experience with, for now. I'm getting pretty excited about delving into the world of Medium format and 120 film. I'll stick to talking about 35mm black and white film for the time being. I learned to process and print my own film a few years ago, in school. And the love for it has grown since then. There's just something magical about shooting with film, feeling the tension in the advance and winding lever, watching images simply appear out of the gloom when developing prints. Maybe it's the smell of developer getting to me, but working in a darkroom is one of the most enjoyable things in my life.
         As I said earlier, I was once a beginner. And I shot with a fairly high-end camera, a Canon EOS Elan IIe. And the best part of using such an electronically controlled camera, was the ability to auto-wind and leave a little tail to pull the film through when I was developing. However, all that plastic just didn't feel real to me. A little while ago, I came across an old 1960's-1970's Yaschica TL-Super film camera. It's got that beautiful black vinyl wrap-around, and made of enough metal to hurl through a window (Disclaimer: don't throw cameras through windows)

        One of my favorite things about this camera is the lens mount. The Yashica uses the Pentax M-42 lens mount, which means that I can swap this lens for a plethora of other lenses. I have an old non-functioning Ricoh SLX 500, which uses the same lens mount and the Ricoh had a nice macro lens and a wide angle lens which has since been re-purposed to my Yashica.
        I aquired this camera from goodwill (and in completely functional condition). And on the bottom is an inscription from the previous owner: a man from Cressona, Pennsylvania who had served in the navy and had taken this camera with him on multiple tours of duty. It absolutely fascinates me to know where this camera has been and what it has "seen". To me, every camera has a story and it's always interesting to know where they come from, or how they were used and when they were used.
       I think I'll be shooting with black and white film for a very long time to come. Nothing quite compares to it, and digital quality just isn't the same. Besides, barring painting your own pictures, there's no better hands-on feeling you get from shooting, to developing, to printing your own photographs. That's why I love film and will continue to love it for the rest of my life.