Out of the dark(room)

I stopped by James Sprunt Community College the other day. I worked there for … a bit, and I wanted to say Hi to old chums. Then I went home and got online and met up with some folks I knew in high school. One was actually a junior high school friend.

Trust me, these things will eventually come together.

I was telling Howard, the junior high guy, what I’d been doing since then. It took a while.

Midway through, it occurred to me I’d spent a lot of my career in the darkroom. People complain about having to come out of the closet. I just wanted out of the darkroom. No. 1: it’s dark. Except for that little orange light.

The other thing was that, when I started in the darkroom in Florida, the chemicals were such that they made your fingers brown. I’ve known a lot of brown people – naturally brown – in my life. Their fingers are not that color.

Yes, they had those little clipper things with the rubber tips. Takes too long. I spent half my time chasing prints around in the developing pan. And I don’t know if you know this, but in the newspaper business, speed is good. So I went in hands first.

Thus, brown fingers.

And it takes a few decades for that to wear off.

When I got to the Wilmington Star-News, though, they wouldn’t even let me in the darkroom. I think they had a poker game going, or maybe it was the brown fingers that tipped them off.

I later joined the staff of JSCC doing public relations for them. So I was back in the darkroom. I worked with a professional photographer, Nelson Best (he does weddings, by the way) but somehow I got darkroom duty.

I can kind of understand it. Nelson could disappear in the darkroom for so long I was sometimes worried he may have had a stroke.

I was the speed demon. Photomat had nothing on me. One hour photos? Please. How about three dozen in 15 minutes? And the chemicals had changed. No brown fingers.

We had to print several copies of each shot to send out to newspapers. Perhaps we sent some to the one you’re reading now.

And then the day came. The college bought us digital cameras. I was finally out of the darkroom.

Nelson, who I believe still has everything he’s ever owned, found a new use for the darkroom. He stacked it with stuff. Eventually, you couldn’t get in there sideways.

Which didn’t bother me a bit.