Eye - Lash Nostalgia

Samantha At 3

I remember TriX. You? I remember pushing it in a custom hot developer brew to 1,200 ASA and beyond to grab three, four, even five stops along with contrast baggage in a grainy snowstorm. Then hunting for the softest paper or the lowest Polycontrast Filter... Pushing the print through a Bessler diffusion enlarger. Burning in its highlights, holding back shadows... Lots of hand action - Waving like a magician between the lens and paper frame. Every image was a one-off - irreproducible. If a client wanted multiple copies, well, that was a challenge.

Paper was cheap. So was my time. I'd spend an orange-lamp night to leave one 11X14" matte print hanging to air-dry till morning. Now? 

Oh well, look at Sami's eyelashes up there, huh? She was three years old last Christmas (2014) evening, glowing from single-bulb lamplight across the room with a TV monitor doing the fill. Now I scalpel away the color, and crop it. Maybe diddle with the dynamic range some in Photoshop... A half hour job to make a hugely reproducible image. 

I'm writing a December article for our magazines. It's about something that will happen in 2025. One at a time, I'm discussing economic, social, and cultural possibilities with a bunch of experts. Everyone has a different take. And it occurs to me that we've enjoyed a wonderful photographic party over my life. My biggest regret just now is that there can be... will be... Unimaginable parties that I'm going to miss. 

Somehow it makes me nostalgic... For the Sami-future that will happen almost in the blink of her mile long eyelash... Sigh...