Some of you are probably too young to remember darkrooms. No, I’m not talking about the place you go to cry when an agent drops you. A darkroom is just another name for the lab where photographers used to develop 35mm film before digital technology consumed the world.
I used to be an amateur photographer and there were two things I loved about taking pictures: One was the sound my camera’s shutter made when I captured the perfect image. And the other was seeing that image come to life in a darkroom.
Here’s how the process worked. The enlarger, an optical gizmo that looks like a slide projector, would project the image from the negative down to a sheet of photographic paper. That sheet would then be immersed in a tray full of liquid developer. At this point, all you could see was a blank piece of paper floating in murky darkness. But as the seconds ticked by, an image would gradually start to form and voilà! The finished print would emerge.
That was always my favorite part of the process—there was something magical about watching a finished product appear from nothing. And in a funny kind of way I’m still enjoying that process, because developing talent is very similar.
Every agent you meet
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