The Darkroom

Darkness is all around us and for half of our lives we live in it and with it. Yet darkness brings fearful and sometimes macabre feelings forth as we encounter it. It permeates our hearts and souls in our emotional states. It is used to describe the future of things to come for those with less positive outlooks to life. It sometimes carries a negative connotation in descriptive terminology. Even physical darkness brings fears to many who encounter it. Children fear the boogieman and adults just fear what they can’t see and understand without the light of day. But darkness can be an important part of life. Nocturnal creatures rely on darkness to seek out their existence safely and humans rely on it to sleep and recharge for their future lives. For Roger, an average human being in our world, it was a means of fulfilling his hobby. A hobby that keeps him alive, well and productive in his golden years. Working in his darkroom developing photographs is the long lost art that technology has destroyed but Roger refuses to forget about.

The door into the darkroom gave the entrant a cold industrial feeling. Roger always imagined entering a bomb shelter whenever he opened this door leading into his darkroom. He built this room in his home and for most of his adult life he developed pictures in it. Being retired and all alone in his life, this room was his sanctuary.  Since the death of his wife, and no other family nearby to visit, the dark room became his comfort zone. The lowly lit entrance was the portal into the caliginous work area where chemicals, utensils and supplies sat in abundance on shelves. A large table, with trays neatly placed on it, sat all alone in the middle of the room. Above the table was one dimly lit red light used as the beacon for sight-lines while working. A portable display board, only steps away from the worktable, was used for hanging the pictures as they dried after developing. Roger loved this room and used it every day as this was more than a hobby for him.

Roger taught in the art department of the local community college for over thirty years. His qualification was photography and loved every day he spent in the classroom. Unfortunately, when technology changed the entire photographic industry, Roger and his skills became obsolete. As the college invested in computers and software the darkroom simply became a storage room for supplies. His knowledge and skills were no longer an asset to the college and retirement become a reality. In his lament over the loss of classic photographic development skills in society, Roger turned to entertaining himself and utilizing his own darkroom regularly.  He professed that his darkroom saved his life, and it continued to keep him alive and well.  His only hope was that he could continue to procure the necessary chemicals and supplies needed to keep his archaic skills and antiquated hobby going.

 Roger spent most of his mornings taking pictures of the beautiful world around him.  By photographing nature’s beauty, it helped keep him positive and loving the world. The best part of his day was when he headed back to the darkroom and started the ceremonial process of developing the pictures. But Roger challenged himself by trying to match a new, modern picture with a historical picture from his past. Since he had a collection of photographic negatives and pictures, from the past 50 years, he had quite a collection to choose from. His goal was to match a new picture with a picture from his past and create a visual story through a collage. Most of the time the pictures showed a great contrast in life over the years but occasionally they also showed not much had changed at all.   One sunny bright summer day Roger took one particular picture for fun. He was quite a sceptic about young people today insisting they are soft and incapable of completing tasks without assistance. Basically, he believed young people were pampered and needed too much stroking to get by in life. When Roger saw a young boy getting a participation ribbon from his soccer coach, he found it was humorous and took the picture. The boy was so proud, smiling brilliantly with his chest pushed forward brandishing the ribbon with pride. The picture turned out better than he anticipated so Roger decided to look for an old picture of himself, as a youth, and compare the two in his latest collage. The search took quite a long time as Roger went back many years into photographs but managed to find a whole series from his athletic youth. Many pictures included Roger receiving awards and posing with trophies, medals and ribbons of athletic achievement and success.  But as he searched back in some even earlier photos, when he was much younger, Roger found some contrasting images. He forgot about the earlier days in his athletics when he was just learning a sport or just playing for fun. He came across several photos of himself with friends and many with his parents at the soccer pitch.  Roger forgot all about those recreational, non-competitive days he participated in sports. One particular picture caught his attention and brought back a very vivid memory. 

Roger was only seven years old and his mother signed him up for soccer. He remembered being scared and resistant about participating but his mom dragged him there against his will.  His coach was an older man, large in stature with a deep voice. Roger was petrified of the man and cried like a baby to leave. He remembered his mother consoling him and talking him into trying it that day.   She promised him an ice cream cone after the practice if he stayed. It must have been a good motivator because Roger stayed that first day and continued in the sport, eventually playing for the city soccer team. He won many awards and received many accolades in his youth thanks to staying at that first practice. Roger started to realize that maybe he was no different than the kids today. They all have feelings and need some consoling and motivation to succeed. As much as he thought kids were tougher and more resilient in his days, he was wrong. Roger re-produced several old pictures of his soccer days and created a collage of photos mixing them amongst the new photos of kids playing today. All the athletes had soccer attire. All the athletes were smiling. All the athletes had parents in the bleachers watching them. All the athletes seemed to be working hard and enjoying themselves. Photos over fifty years apart and not much had changed.

Roger entered this particular collage in a photo contest later that year and the photos all remained on display for several weeks. He didn’t win nor did he even place in the top ten for prizes, but many people admired the old photographs and recalled many memories of their own childhoods.  Speaking to people about this particular collage and sharing his memories with them made it all worthwhile. The darkroom will live on and will continue to defy technology as long as Roger pursues his photographic skills.