Decades ago, I spent many happy hours in developing and printing film in my home darkroom, a converted outhouse in the grounds of a large rectory. It was a sort of almost meditative experience, with Pink Floyd playing on the CD player, in the warm stillness of the darkroom. The distinctive, though not unpleasant smell of photo fixer lingered for days on my fingers. Afterwards there was a small number of paper prints drying off on string lines, of which maybe one or two gave me satisfaction. It was a long process if all you wanted to do was print as many photos as possible, but it was such fun if you enjoyed it as a craft instead of a production line. The onslaught of digital photography eclipsed my interest in film development, but more recently I've got out my developing equipment and started to shoot some film, using old rangefinders like Soviet era Zorkis and Kievs. My old enjoyment of going slow and careful has been re-discovered. Here's one, shot using a German made camera, the Braun Paxette, of the mid 1950s.
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