Residency - Minneapolis Community and Technical College - John Johnston - 4 hrs
We have negatives! This week the students developed their first role of film and nearly every student was successful. The class began with students pairing up to roll film and go through the chemical process. Rolling film must be done in complete darkness so we hit the lights and the students worked together to open their canisters and get the film on the roller. After they rolled it up and put the film in the light tight canister, we turned the lights back on and began processing. There’s always an air of nervousness and excitement when developing film that I find addicting and it’s that feeling that you don’t get when shooting digitally. After the development process was over, the students took a look at their negatives and we talked about what problems arose and how those issues can be avoided next time.
During lecture we continued our discussion of ISO and introduced shutter speed and aperture. John went over the different stops within each scale and how they affect the overall exposure. This was another lecture heavy day due to the need to learn the concepts. These concepts will be more easily understood when students actually go out and shoot. I have seen instructors do a live demonstration with a DSLR to show how these components affect the images and I feel that actually being able to see it while you’re learning helps the information sink in. Due to this being a college course and we have limited time, I understand leaving the experimentation up to the students. Next week we’ll hopefully have another roll from each student and we will begin making positives from their negatives!