I awakened with the desire to make homemade biscuits. Good thing I was home.
I mixed the flour, baking soda, milk, other ingredients with a whisk. I know!!! It has been a while. So, I got a knife and picked/scraped the sticky dough from the whisk and used the knife to mix the batter. I dropped the dough on the cookie sheet (with parchment paper) and baked them to perfection… or dang close.
I was thinking about all my mistakes I have made in my life… And since I woke up in a good mood, I quickly tossed those memories aside and thought of how many mistakes I have made and continue to make in photography.
When I was starting out and began taking this photography thing seriously when I was 16, I bought a plastic tank and plastic reels to develop my film. I told Ruth Bernhard I was using plastic and she told me to bring my plastic developing tank and reels to her studio the next time I was there (I was her darkroom/studio gopher). I did. She stomped on the reels and threw them in the trash (no recycling back then in 1967) along with the plastic tank. Then she gave me two stainless steel reels and a 16oz stainless steel tank with a stainless steel lid and cap. I still have it.
She told me to waste a roll of Kodak Tri-X film, 36 exposures, and practice loading the stainless steel reels in my kitchen in daylight. Did I? No.
I went directly to my darkroom and loaded two rolls of 35mm film I exposed in Golden Gate Park. When I finally turned on the light, I saw that I had the entire roll loaded at the bottom of the reels. Of course, the film was all stuck together. I did this about four times, and eight rolls of film destroyed before I took a roll of Tri-X to the kitchen, pulled it from the cassette and practiced loading the film in daylight. I had to use six more rolls of fresh Tri-X because I kept crinkling the film edges. Finally, I got it.
When I told Ruth I was using the reels she gave me, she said, “I bet you didn’t practice rolling the film in daylight and instead ruined two rolls of film.” And I said, with pride, “No. I did not. I ruined eight rolls of film before I decided to learn in the light.” Can we all run to the light, today, and learn something??? Please.
Kids…here’s the moral (morale?) to the story. I did not ruin eight rolls of film. I did not fail to load them properly. I learned eight ways of how NOT to do it.
I leave you with The Gift. My stainless steel tank, lid and reels from Ruth.
