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I miss buying film in bulk and rolling my own to save money, and I miss trying to figure out which was the emulsion side and whether it went up or down. I miss scratch-removing fluid. I miss the thrill of turning on the lights and seeing your pictures for the first time. And I miss that sometimes, they didn’t come out.
I miss rewinding film in the camera with that little pop-up crank, and I miss having only 24 or 36 exposures. I miss trying to remember what kind of film you had in the camera, and I miss making double exposures either on purpose or by accident.
I miss home movies and getting those little plastic reels back from the processing lab. I miss not having any sound or music and the flashes of light that happened when you weren’t careful handling the film. I miss movie projectors and the way you had to thread them to work properly. I miss having to edit in the camera.
I miss bellows. I miss flopping negatives and I miss cranking the enlarger up or down to crop an image. I miss knocking things on the counter to eliminate any bubbles, and I miss rocking trays back and forth so the prints developed evenly.
I miss setting up the enlarger on the toilet seat and stuffing towels under the door to keep the light out. I miss my sister being mad because she couldn’t get into the bathroom. And I miss my dad waiting patiently next to me, showing me how it was done.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the capabilities and convenience of digital photography, and there’s still plenty of stuff to accumulate. I just hope that somewhere out there, parents are sitting next to their children teaching them how to use Photoshop for the very first time.
This article was last modified on May 17, 2023
This article was first published on September 3, 2010
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