Development

At College yesterday we developed our first Black and White films.

I was buddied up with Justin so he mixed the chemistry and did the icky chemical bits while I went into the deep dark of the film loading room.

Once the door was closed it was absolutely pitch black and even though the room was only about four feet by four feet I was soon lost, and if you think that that isn't possible I assure you that you are wrong.

I had two films to load onto reels which are then immersed in a little tank of developer.

You have to use a can-opener type thing to pop the top off the film canister, then unravel the film and by touch alone feed the film into the loading mechanism of the reel then using a twisting motion of the wrist wind the film onto the reel. The reel holds the film in a spiral so that the surfaces don't touch each other.

Before I even started rolling in the film I realised that my watch was glowing in the dark and this had to be removed and put in a pocket.

The first reel I fumbled with in the dark jammed two thirds of the way through loading so I had to pull the film out of that one and start again; doing that in the dark kinked the film (unlucky, Justin). Second time round was successful, but the second reel jammed before it even got the film in, so a spare reel had to be used.

Unbeknownst to me I had been shuffling around on my feet and was no longer facing in the direction of the shelf where the bits and bobs were - it must have taken five minutes of subjective sensory-deprivation time to find it again.

Then film-plonking-in-developer time arrived and when the film was duly plonked I pressed the wrong button on the timer (in the dark) and reset it... ooops.

After college I went on a little sightseeing tour and visited a Cathedral not too far away, which was rather splendid in a post-Gothic kind of way, before cycling back over the Story Bridge to watch another city sunset.

I can think of worse routines to get into.