SAD159: On Target, part II

SAD159 :: Pentax K1000 :: Pentax 28mm/f2.8 SMC :: HP5 pushed to ISO 800 :: June, 2005







Looking at these images makes queasy. I printed twelve of them for the final Documentary critique. In four days. For those that don't understand, a finished silver gelatin print takes about four hours of work. This doesn't count the matting or spot toning.

The darkroom had been closed the week before the final for re-plumbing. This meant that the entire class began printing for the Thursday morning final on Sunday night. When I look at these images, I can feel the heat in the darkroom, see the grain focus in front of my tired eyes, smell the fixer. I called in to work. We sent one person out for food. When all the restaurants had closed, we ate from the vending machine. Each night I stayed later; I'd drive home and wash off the chemicals before crawling into bed. I would dream that I had a print in the developer, and I had forgotten to agitate it. I'd reach cross the sink and tip the tray, and wake up. Fall asleep. Repeat.

Each night I called Jes to explain why I would not be home. This conversation became harder as the week wore on; most people pull their college all-nighters at home between a computer and pile of text books. Not in a dark room with WCU sorority girls.

Wednesday night I didn't come home at all. We finished printing around six, broke for dinner, and came back to mat the prints as soon as they dried. We planned to make an evening of it, figuring that we had reached the end of the hardest week in our college careers. We brought a bottle of wine and rice krispie treats, and planned to be home in bed by 10.

At the time, UNCA had one mat cutter that was shared between all of the photo, drawing, print making, and painting classes. It was beaten up, out of square, and missing pieces. There were five of us, each with 12 prints to mat. By midnight, it was clear we had underestimated the task at hand.

I fell asleep beneath a table at about five a.m. One girl passed out from exhaustion in the restroom. Some people actually made it home, only to come back at eight for the critique. At seven, I called Jes to tell her that I didn't think I could drive home after the crit, and ask if she could pick me up. I remember sitting in her car, wondering if I could keep down a piece of toast.

As I've said before on the blog, it has all been uphill from there. I don't doubt I'll find that place again, but I've been lucky so far. I'm glad I was there once.

The work was amazing. We had all been so focused on our own images we had never looked at each others'. I never saw a better collection of photos than the ones that class produced, and I took every photo class the school had to offer. And that, more than anything, stuck with me. The most brutal work produced the most subtle, eloquent images I'd seen. Dues paid in full.