Let me take you back to the late 90s for a moment. I shot my first roll of black and white film when I was in high school. I took it to Wal-Mart for developing, because that is what high school kids did then. It took two weeks (TWO WEEKS!) to get the prints back because Wal-Mart only did color processing on site.
When I was a photography student in college, I (shamefully) never learned how to load film from the canister to the reel. I was able to get away with this because Wal-Mart started selling C-41 “black and white” film. I would shoot photos for my black and white photography classes with this film, take it to Winn Dixie for developing and then print in the JSU darkroom. If my professor knew, he didn’t care.
Over the years, I had dozens of rolls of film developed at Winn Dixie or Wal-Mart. I took pictures at every church event, for all of my photo classes, at every even so gig, at parties, at weddings…
But then, for a lot of different reasons, I started taking less photos. Around the same time, the photo lab world changed while I wasn’t watching.
Now it’s 2008. My son will be 18 months old this week and the only film photos taken of him were by Marianne Lewis at The 215. I decided it might be fun to kick it old school and shoot a roll myself. I had to go buy new batteries for my film camera, but I still have several rolls of film.
Yesterday morning, Ben was clean, well-fed and in a good mood. I put him in an outfit Jan bought for him from a children’s boutique and we drove over to the bird sanctuary behind the mall. At 7am on a Sunday morning is a great time to visit the mall parking lot. Ben gleefully ran up and down the sidewalk; he was ecstatic to see the ducks.
I had forgotten what the film camera sounds like, but the feel of it and shooting the way I used to felt very familiar. It seemed like this might be a fun thing to do every once in a while.
We dropped off the film at Walgreen’s on our way to church. We picked them up after lunch. What words describe my response to the prints? Devastated and appalled are too strong. Disappointed and unhappy are not strong enough. The photos were digital. They developed the negatives, but the prints were not from the negatives. I assume they scanned the negatives.
I showed the photos to Carol and Eric later that day. Surely these two could commiserate! But no. They gave me incredulous looks that seemed to say “It’s Walgreens. What did you expect?”
I did not expect them to be digital! That was the point of shooting film!
I pestered the both of them until I understood why they were so cavalier. Carol, it seems, has just lowered all expectations upon moving back to Gadsden. Okay, I can see that.
But Eric is a professional photographer! Why was he not getting that these prints sucked?!? With him, it seems, the age difference is just enough. While I have memories of bringing home Wal-Mart or Winn Dixie prints that while probably not properly exposed were at least clear and actually printed from the negatives, he does not.
He has agreed to have pity on me and print one of the photos from the actual negative.
I don’t even know where I could take film to have it processed “the old way.” If I took it to Wal-Mart, would they be able to send it somewhere? Would it be like all those years ago when not enough people brought in black and white film to warrant on-site processing? Does nobody shoot enough film anymore to make the store real estate worth it for anything but digital?
