Sinister: 4.5.... 6.8.... 14 (and a bit), seconds of light

[patrick doyle]

Hi there,

Out of thirty-six, my camera had managed to spit out a grand total of three 
exposures. I decided, regardless, to go ahead and develop the ones that did 
come out in the negatives. The dark room is my favourite place in the 
school, it means I can be on my own, means I can eat lollipops and listen to 
my mini disc player, means I can be out of the way of my art teacher, who 
for no apparent reason seems to have taken a great disliking to me in the 
last few years, and I find photography a lot of fun. I chose a photo of my 
friend emma first of all

*Ink Polaroid*

This photo was taken, primarily to use up the last few photos on my film, 
and coincidently was one of the only ones that came out in the end. It's a 
black and white photo. She's standing outside the police station, which is 
on the way home. She's wearing my parka, and trying to look all innocent - 
it isn't working. The sign above the door (reading 'POLICE') is out of 
focus, as is the rest of the photo, with only emma (plus parka) being clear.

*End*

As I loaded my negative into the enlarger, I smiled as Electronic 
Renaissance came on my mini disc player. I usually have music on while I'm 
working, probably one of the reasons my art teacher seems to hate me. I set 
out my paper and tried first of all, an exposure for (roughly) 3 seconds, 
then took it off to the developer tray. As I left it to develop, I started a 
new one, this time of 6 seconds, which, probably due to my lack of 
concentration, turned out to be more like 8 seconds, but it seemed to work 
ok as it started to come through on the paper. By this time, the first shot 
had fully developed and now lay in the sink, a little light, but ok none-the 
less. Despite the second shot being longer than i first anticipated, it was 
still a bit on the light side.

I took one more; this time for 12 seconds...this is where it all went a bit 
wrong. My teacher seems to have a habit of walking in the room at the most 
inappropriate times, and if it had been me walking in on someone, he 
probably would have killed me. As soon as I click on the light and began to 
count, the door opened and in he wandered. Because I'm so fecking terrified 
of him, I completely lost it, my hand began to shake, and slid about on the 
button, I had absolutely no idea how long I'd had the light on for - turned 
out it ended up being on for about 14 seconds, which is a bit much I 
suppose. Although at the time, I could have quite happily told my teacher 
to, feck off, he actually did me a favour - in a strange round-about way - 
14 seemed to be a good time for the photo and it turned out to be the best 
out of the three I did today.

I started a new film today, just hope I get more photos this time...

*Fingers crossed*


Patrick x


‘Monochrome in the 1990's
you go disco and I'll go my way’





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