Like Coming Home

This picture from an online auction site stirred up some nice memories of my earliest days of photography…

There are a number of hobbies that were immensely popular when I was in junior high school in the early to mid 1970s that I am almost certain are virtually extinct with the same age group today: model airplane and rocket building, model trains and slot cars, ham radio and home darkrooms.

I had a brief fling with model rockets. These were little plastic and balsa wood kits that included solid propellent. You’d spend a bunch of time building and painting your rocket, only to launch it into the sky the first time and have it come crashing back down into a million pieces in the neighbor’s driveway.

I was interested in ham radio, but lawn mowing and snow shoveling money in those days wasn’t adequate for even the cheapest build it yourself Heathkit radios.

A friend and his Dad built an elaborate Lionel train layout in their garage, complete with little buildings and trees and streetlights that lit up. And while I could see how designing, building and painting all of these miniature things would be fun, I just couldn’t warm to watching little trains going round the same path over and over again.

Photography was a different story and that bug bit me hard in the 7th grade. It didn’t hurt that a healthy number of school friends were into the hobby and most all of them had home darkrooms of one sort or another.

My best friend Mike, who taught me how to develop black and white film and make contact prints and enlargements, had a small and inadequately ventilated darkroom in the basement bathroom of his parent’s house. We spent hours in that little room with stop bath and fixer fumes swirling around us. I am surprised we didn’t asphyxiate ourselves.

I had two photography friends named Dave. Dave #1 carved out a corner in his parent’s unfinished basement by hanging heavy black drapes from the ceiling. We worked down there with a big coal furnace grunting nearby. His space lacked water, so fixed prints were held in a bucket of water that we’d carry outside to a hose near the garage for “proper” washing. Imagine doing that outside in January in Upstate New York!

Dave #2 developed his own film but didn’t have the capability to make prints. He’d bring his negatives to school and use the school’s darkroom for printing. Yes, many junior and senior high schools had darkrooms, usually in the art department. Our high school had a big elaborate darkroom with a neat revolving door that let people enter without letting any light in with them!

Paul was another friend of mine and while he wasn’t into photography, his father was. Paul’s father had a real darkroom in the family basement with an Omega B-22 enlarger, a proper set up for print washing, lots of space and good ventilation. He shot with a Nikon F 35mm SLR and I remember holding that camera and dreaming of someday owning something that nice. Paul’s father also made it possible for me to set up my own home darkroom. In addition to giving me a Kodak Home Darkroom Outfit, similar to the one in the photo above, he also sold me an old Federal enlarger, some porcelain developing trays, bamboo tongs, film clips and a starter supply of Kodak D-76 and Dektol developers, Kodak Indicator Stop Bath and Kodak Fixer.

A Federal Enlarger Model 269—Same as the one I had.

My Mom reluctantly agreed to let me set up my enlarger in the corner of her laundry room and hang my little Kodak Brownie safelight from the ceiling. I’d tape black plastic to the window when I wanted to work in there and put a sign on the door that said “Darkroom In Use—Do Not Enter!”

Winter Friday nights or rainy Sunday afternoons were spent holed up in my makeshift darkroom under the warm glow of the safelight and listening to the local Top 40 station on my Realistic transistor radio. I have fond memories of those years.

By the middle of my high school years, photography took a back seat to other interests. Like most boys, I spent lots of time thinking about girls and cars. I also became interested in airplanes and took some flying lessons, soloing a Piper Cherokee on my 16th birthday.

I didn't fly much after that solo but did finish up my training in the mid 1990s and got my private pilots license. In recent years, bouts of vertigo have kept me out of the left seat.

In 2012, I brushed up on my radio theory and took the test for my ham radio license. I passed and got the General Class license. The places I have lived since then really haven’t allowed for the construction of a proper antenna though, so burning up the shortwaves is on hold.

Of all of the hobbies and recreational pursuits though, photography has been the one constant. Even if I took a break from it for a while, I’d always come back to it. It’s always felt warm and comfortable. Like coming home.