I started and finished up my first black-and-white film this past weekend. I picked up my developed film from the processing lab, and thought I’d check them out when I got home, so I turned on my car. But for anyone who’s ever waited to get their photos developed (even the mere 3 hours that I had to wait), you know how impossible it is to wait. So, not even turning off my car, I pulled out my prints and took a quick look-see.
And so marked the first time I just felt so in love with film. My other 3 rolls of color film were great, don’t get me wrong, but something about them didn’t oh-so-perfectly click with me. But these black and white prints did. I had to get another black and white roll of film and shoot some more! Quick like a bunny, I immediately opened up my car door to run back inside and hurriedly tried to lock the doors but my car was, for some reason, unlocking the doors every time I locked them. In my love-fueled haste, I had forgotten that my keys were still in the ignition. I have never done that in all of the years I’ve been driving! That’s how in love I was with black and white film.
Sadly, the prints look a bit different from the scanned negatives (which you see below). The prints are richer and have more contrast. These scans are a lot less contrasty; I’m so tempted to add some back in with Photoshop! But that kind of takes away from it, so here you are, the negatives in all their black and white film glory. These are some snapshots I took in a 10 minute jaunt around downtown Saratoga.
(After I took the picture above, a woman crossed the street and asked me what I was taking pictures of. I said that I liked the curtains and eventually left. When I circled back around 10 minutes later, she was still there, taking shots of different angles of the curtains with her camera phone!)
a happy day 