by chunkyslink on 7/29/19, 12:52 PM with 78 comments
by VyseofArcadia on 7/29/19, 1:51 PM
It starts with the name, age, and appearance of the darkroom? As if it's a character? And then all of a sudden it's a dialogue with no introduction whatsoever, where the bold text is one character and the normal text is another?
This doesn't explain why anything at all. It's just a weirdly formatted snarky dialog. With a strange do and don't at the end.
by nabla9 on 7/29/19, 1:23 PM
It would be interesting to imagine the conversation when they try to decipher the future science and technology from the "commoner" from the 2019.
"You are Newton, you are famous man. You discovered gravity I think. But you were wrong and everything is relative. There are black holes that suck even light. Light has a speed and nothing can be faster than light."
"Maxwell. I have heard that name. Batteries or something. Anyways, there is this thing called quantum mechanics where everything is either particle and a wave and nobody knows how it works and its weird. Have you met Schrödinger and do you know about his experiments with cats?"
by souterrain on 7/29/19, 1:55 PM
The author of this piece doesn’t seem to understand the process either. The light will expose the photographic paper, which will render it useless. The developed negative film is relatively safe from light-induced damage.
The author also fails to mention that one begins developing film (at least, the way I did it years ago) by transferring it to a lightproof container in a completely black room. They tend to not show this part in Hollywood, I suppose, since black rooms don’t really translate well to the screen. (Unless there is an alternative process I’m unaware of... I was very much a noob B&W photographer.)
by taejo on 7/29/19, 1:39 PM
It's the retail photo lab that really distinguishes my generation from the last.
by jobu on 7/29/19, 2:07 PM
This is the StackExchange question that went viral: https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/102266/what-is-th...
by YeGoblynQueenne on 7/29/19, 1:15 PM
Hey, I think I know that one. The name sounds wrong but it's definitely referring to a device by which one enters virtual reality:
by abruzzi on 7/29/19, 2:07 PM
by Finnucane on 7/29/19, 1:11 PM
by a-saleh on 7/29/19, 1:33 PM
I remember I created a small camera-obscura based photo-camera with friends for a physics project from piece o aluminium, old shoe-box and photo-paper :)
Reloading it was a pain, cause you had to be in a dark-room to put in in the box :D
Exposition was minutes.
It was awesome!
by II2II on 7/29/19, 2:09 PM
"You mean he can make computer chips in the red room?"
"No, the chemicals are different as are some of the steps. What I am trying to say is that similar concepts are used. Things like the exposure of photosensitive materials to light and using other chemicals to change the properties of exposed areas."
"That doesn't make any sense at all. Light can't change chemicals."
"Of course it can. That is how photosynthesis works."
"What do plants have to do with this?"
"Very little. I was just using a common example to prove that chemicals can changed by light."
"Okay, but plants are different from computer chips and photographs so I still don't see how it's related."
(The conversation continues in circles for a bit.)
"Look, we used to think about things in very different ways. When your generation and my generation sees stuff coming off of factory line, we have a tendency to think of things being made in mechanical ways. So we're the same in that respect. On the other hand, you see a lot of things being created digitally so you have a greater tendency to think of things being built up from bits in computer memory. My generation saw a lot of things being made by carefully controlled chemical reactions, so it is easier for us to imagine things being created that way. Just because I have less exposure to the former doesn't mean that it does not exist. Just because you have less exposure to the latter doesn't mean that it does not exist. The world changes. Get used to it. Heck, have some fun in the process and explore the old ways as well as the up-and-coming ways. It will make your worldview much richer."
by harel on 7/29/19, 2:14 PM
The problem with modern life, as wonderful and amazing as they are, is that many people lack the history of how we got there. Obviously younger ones have not lived through it, but at least a basic knowledge of the progress made will help them appreciate just how wonderful and amazing our times are.
by egypturnash on 7/29/19, 2:00 PM
by nudpiedo on 7/29/19, 2:08 PM
Young people with interest by photography will still know about these things because they will buy an analog camera and become what we call “hypsters” nowadays (the equivalent of “nerds” back then). And back then also not everyone knew or could go through the whole negative reveal process, as much as nowadays not everyone can format a hard disk and install an OS.
by raverbashing on 7/29/19, 1:54 PM
Today my phone (far from a top of the line model) takes better pictures (both in pixel size and sensitivity) than my first digital camera (which I think had a whopping 128MB memory card)
(Having read about it a long time ago I'm a bit familiar with how film is developed - note the red light is only useful for some types of B&W film, your regular color film will get exposed even with a dim red light)
by karmakaze on 7/29/19, 8:59 PM
I've never developed film photographs myself and just assumed it was for the benefit of preserving low-light sensitivity in our eyes rather than anything related to exposing the paper to different wavelengths of light--just lower intensities that we can still see.
by sritrisna on 7/29/19, 2:05 PM
by whoopdedo on 7/29/19, 2:08 PM
by WaltPurvis on 7/29/19, 2:23 PM
by pavel_lishin on 7/29/19, 1:27 PM
by notus on 7/29/19, 2:41 PM