im currently a senior in hs and our school requires what's called a "senior project." as my general topic, i chose photography. the project includes both a research paper and an accompanying project. for the project, i want to learn to develop the negative and prints in a darkroom (specifically B&W film)... but what can i "prove" about b&w film or its development???...oh and this is 40% of my English grade.

-- Yang Kwon (aLsOiVaEn415@aol.com), November 11, 1999

Answers

Maybe you could prove lights effect on silver.

-- Joe Cole (jcole@apha.com), November 11, 1999.

Well, if it's english, I don't know that you could "proove" anything so much as argue in favor of something. What aspect of B&W and photography grabs you the most? Argue for that providing you have adequate supporting material.

Werre it me, I might argue in favor of always buying used equipment and "classic" lenses that one does not need to have the best and most recent anything to produce meaningful or even technically adequate work.

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), November 11, 1999.

Picking up on Sean's response you could make a pinhole camera from scraps/trash and 'argue' that you can make images with that which are as meaningful as those made with cameras costing thousands of $$$'s.

-- Christian Harkness (chris.harkness@eudoramail.com), November 11, 1999.

Before reading the answers I thought that pinhole might be a way to go. You can make then from almost anything. You can use "paper negatives" which are low cost and easy to use. You can make them in big sizes. And, I'll bet you can think of something unique to "prove" with this. E-Mail me or contact tony at:

http://www.alaska.net/~rowlett/pinhole.htm

-- Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com), November 13, 1999.

You can certainly prove that photographs lie, because they are "not reality," but distortions of reality.

-- Tony Brent (ajbrent@mich.com), November 17, 1999.

Although not about b&w film and its development, I agree with Christian Harkness in that you can argue that anyone can make a "camera" for a dollar's worth of materials (or less). There are numerous sites out there that explain how.

Regarding b&w film and its development, all you really can prove are things like: 1) the more exposure to light, the blacker the silver crystals become; 2) the more development, the blacker the silver crystals become but in a different relation to silver crystals which received a different exposure; 3) the more agitation, the more accelerated the development action; 4) the higher the temperature of the developer, the more accelerated the development action; 5) development reveals shadow details before the highlights; and certain Murphy's Laws are always fun to prove: 6) the chances of your enlarger bulb burning out are much greater at the beginning of your print session and decrease as the developer and fixer wear out; and 7) they quadruple if you do not have a spare bulb; 8) somebody will call you on the telephone the moment you drop a print into the developer; 9) as soon as you've cleared every last speck of dust off the negative and are ready to make your first test print, you will be called to dinner. Hurry, or it will get cold. Regarding process of negatives, I like this one a lot: The very best shot on the roll will be shot number 36, the one you have to snip from the last strip of 5 frames because you use the 7x5 negative sleeves which dont' have room for the 36th frame so if that frame is any good you have to either didicate another whole page to it, or store it in some other place and it will eventually get lost or very dusty if you don't store it properly. This happens to me all the time, by the way.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), November 17, 1999.