In our recent AEP classes, we have been working on our photography module. It is unlike the digital photography which is so commonly used nowadays, this term we are progressing towards film art, which is basically film photography. The usage of film photography has been greatly reduced due to the tedious process of developing it. However, people still do appreciate film photography because they are the raw way of taking photos. With the advancement of technology in the modern world, the enhancing of photos has become greatly common in photography. People are not observing the world as before. That is probably the aim of our module – to appreciate the beauty of the world by observing it.
This term, excitingly, we get to make our very own paper camera. Two lessons ago, we were given the materials to make our very own pinhole camera. After much cutting and pasting, our paper cameras were ready to be used. It was simply made of a camera body (core), the film and the shutter. We could take photos by allowing light to be capture in the film when we lifted up the shutter. After a couple of seconds, we would shut the shutter and the image is captured on the film. The time for the shutter was crucial because the amount of light taken in by film had to be perfected to create a suitable exposure for the photo to be seen. It was a lot of trial and error, and many of times we were unable to get a lot of photos, but that was what makes it special.
When we finished our film, we could start developing our film. My AEP teacher, Miss Chung, brought me and three other classmates, Zhefang, Shiun Kang and Jiarui, into the dark room so that we could develop our photos. The dark room, as the name goes, was a completely dark room with no lights, because our film cannot be exposed to any light when we remove them from our cameras. They would be overexposed if light came into contact with them. I was mild claustrophobic and that was really a tough time inside. It took me quite some time to settle in. Well, the rest of them were pretty fast in reeling their film and I was the slowest among them. Some of us dropped our spool after reeling them and we had to reel them again. We spent quite a long time in there and I was pretty sure our pupils were huge in there. We only finished reeling everyone’s film after an hour and that was not the end the developing of photos. We had to add chemicals to the spool and agitate them to produce the images on the film. We spent an entire lesson trying to develop the four films. Tiring as it was, I felt that it was an exciting experience that might only occur a couple of times in my lifetime.