Film Development Workshop(Development and Digitizing)

A Technique and Praxis class with Emil von Maltitz in association with Vega School Durban 

There is something magical about working with the tangible results of analogue, or film, photographs. Handling a negative and subsequent print seems magical in comparison to the almost sterile cleanliness of digital imagery.

A growing nostalgia as well as a realisation of the inherent strengths of traditional film has meant that in the last few years there has been a resurgence of interest in the techniques and skills of film photography.

The problem is that there are very few independent photo labs that are still prepared to develop and print traditional 35mm films and even fewer who are prepared to handle the larger format films like 120 and even 4x5 inch sheet film.
 
Yet, it is actually relatively simple to do one’s black and white negative development at home. All it requires is a development tank, a few plastic beakers, a thermometer and some patience.

Once the negatives are developed it is also relatively simple to get the images into a computer and finish the ‘printing’ process digitally.
The combination of traditional darkroom techniques and digital manipulation means that analogue photography can continue to be relevant into the future.

It also gives photographers new creative opportunities and means to further express their imaging ideas.

Teaching in a small home space isn’t necessarily the easiest way to get the principles of negative development across to students. Instead Emil and Nature’s Light have teamed up with the Vega School in Durban to offer a weekend workshop in black and white film photography, development and subsequent digitization of the imagery.

As a bonafide cheapskate, Emil also makes sure to teach techniques that do not break the bank, ensuring that you can get into film photography affordably!

You will learn about mixing of Darkroom Chemistry, handling Film (in the dark) as well basic development of Black and White Negatives.

You will also learn how to digitize negatives of any size using a conventional digital camera and then finish off with your digital workflow to convert negatives into positive images using Lightroom, PhotoShop or similar bitmap editors.

Itinerary:
Friday – Theory - Shooting and Development
Photographers meet at the Vega School in Umhlanga. After a brief meet and greet we sit down to discuss analogue photography and some of the techniques to be aware of when switching from digital to film.

We start by learning about mixing chemistry from dry, thereby preparing the development stock for later in the afternoon.
Each participant will get a black and white roll of film which we then shoot with over a portrait shoot and then a photowalk at nearby Umhlanga Rocks.

We break for lunch and then head back to Vega.
Back at Vega we load films into development tanks and develop all of the films using the chemistry that was mixed in the morning. We leave them to dry overnight.

Saturday – Digitizing and Post-Production
Photographers will all meet again at Vega. We then use simple equipment to photograph the negatives and ingest them into our computers.

Once everyone has their negatives digitized, we head to a lecture room to go over the basics of post-production and converting the files into final polished images. We finish off after a light snack.