My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.

[Aqua Letifer]

I saw a meme recently, chronicling our collective nostalgia timeline over the past year, and found it pretty accurate. From April to June, there was a lot of "I miss my office and podcast commutes" going around, followed that winter by things like, "I miss pumpkin spice lattes and holiday parties." After that, time became a construct and we all started saying shit like "I really want to go to Blockbuster" on the regular.

For three years, I took journalism classes in high school. I straightup took them to slack off—I had no idea they'd be the most relevant classes I'd take in preparation for my future job prospects.

At the time though, it was just fun. My friend Nick got so into it that he fashioned his own darkroom in his parents' basement. We spent a lot of time in there developing and printing the film we shot using a Pentax K1000 (because of course that's what we used). All B&W then, not because we were arty or whatever, but because that color shit was expensive.

My wife took a photography class in college, and for her final exam, she had to work on a project from soup to nuts: planning the shots, taking them, developing, printing and framing them. She said she had a blast doing it. I said I had quite the time in my classes as well, locking the darkroom door so we could rock out to NOFX and print our photos of buildings we may or may not have broken into.

Awhile back, we were talking about this with my FIL, who dropped off his Nikon F2 for me to take a look at. Which I think was a damn rad gesture, considering that he isn't so much a fan of me as he chooses to tolerate my existence.

Note the absolutely baller advance mechanism, which the ravages of time have yet to corrupt:

After some further talk, my wife has taken it upon herself to buy a few rolls of some Ilford HP5, the hipster film stock of choice. It's also the shit I used in high school.

But what I'm most excited about is this fucker:

No more fumbling around with a Paterson Tank like a sucker, threading your film through a spool in total darkness. With this bad boy, all you do is thread it like you would in your camera, then turn the crank and it spools the film for you. Works with medium format, too.

Also getting the chemicals:

[brenda]

@aqua-letifer

Love this! Please share your results, lots of pics. LOTS of pics, please.

Your FIL is warming up to you. No way he would hand off that gem if he didn't think you were alright after all. These things can happen. My MIL learned to like me, even love me. I never expected that to happen. LOLOL

[mark]

So jealous! I used to live in the darkroom.

Studied photography as a major my first time around the college scene.

Loved medium and large format.

I had a darkroom (makeshift or dedicated) in our house since I was about 14 years old. I have a ton of room for a darkroom now, but I sold everything years ago. Including a top line, Beseler 45 with zeiss enlarging lenses. Oh man. Those were the days!

[Aqua Letifer]

@mark said in My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.:

Beseler 45

Oh man.

If this gets nutty enough, I'll probably get a medium format. I only dabbled in them back in the day but man, crazy image quality. Really fun.

A buddy of mine just shot a roll of original aerochrome. I can't wait to see how that came out.

@mark shoot any 8x10?

[mark]

@aqua-letifer In school we used 8x10. Mostly 4x5 though.

[Aqua Letifer]

@mark said in My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.:

@aqua-letifer In school we used 8x10.

Lucky bastard! Did you all hate yourselves enough to try 20x24?

[Klaus]

@mark said in My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.:

I had a darkroom in our house since I was about 14 years old.

Does your wife know about that?

[mark]

@aqua-letifer said in My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.:

@mark said in My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.:

@aqua-letifer In school we used 8x10.

Lucky bastard! Did you all hate yourselves enough to try 20x24?

Never had the pleasure. lol

[George K]

@klaus said in My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.:

@mark said in My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.:

I had a darkroom in our house since I was about 14 years old.

Does your wife mother know about that?

FIFY.