Ken Smith Photo Journal

I had an opportunity this last weekend to blow the dust off my Burke and James 5×7 camera. For a couple years it has been a shining sculpture in my living room, a relic and reminder of a past when things were not so electronic. I put it to work photographing some turtle shells I am incorporating in an art piece. It wasn’t an easy matter, for I had to reacquaint myself with the other world which I had left behind for so long. I needed to get out my handheld pentax spot meter, fill the wood film holders with efke 100 asa sheet film…I had to clean the darkroom sink of the accumulation gathered there as the darkroom became a multi-purpose room.

Then, for several hours I got to play in an earthy way, with things made of wood and glass. I needed to remind myself to put the lens cap back on the lens after focusing, before removing the dark slide from the film holder. Everything was alien, and yet familiar. It came back with a sweet memory. Again, I went back to the school boy timer…..”one thousand one, one thousand two…”, like in some hide and seek game with light and shadow. The exposure on the old french darlot lense was 4 seconds at f22, then I quickly put the lenscap back on the lens. It has no shutter.

I went to the darkroom, familiarizing myself again with the beakers, the formulas of the chemistry, the gralab timer. Jeez, I could screw up at any point and ruin the film. I could only develop one sheet at a time, having slipped it sideways in a curve inside the 1-liter Paterson tank, emulsion side in. I was using the two part Pyrocat HD developer, which leaves a brown stain on the film, and was so beautiful it could be a finished picture in negative form.

The whole process was so antique compared to what I had been living with in my photography for such a long time. Every part of it could have been a century ago, or timeless…what men had dealt with before they knew about things binary. But in a hybrid affliction I scanned the film into my computer to print on my epson. It is all pretty awesome, but I didn’t know it would be, till I actually went thru the compete process. Now, I need to do it again and again. The 5×7 is no longer a monolith in the corner, but of real use. I won’t leave digital either – I am a heretic to nothing. I move through the shadows, enticed towards the unmentioned taboo by two lovers, for one alone cannot satisfy me.