I'm back in therapy again

Yes, I'm back in therapy again and I think it's helping. Keeping up with everything I am supposed to do was starting to wear me down. Thoughts of going truck driving were sounding pretty inviting and Mrs. Griz suggested a little therapy might clear my mind and make my schedule a little more bearable.

So I did it. I made an appointment and headed off for a therapy session. The first went so well, I returned for a second and a third and figure I maybe ought to continue it regularly. It used to be a part of my life. I went as often as I could and it helped. I expect it would work again if I kept it up.

What kind of therapy, you might wonder? Well, let me tell you about it. I headed off last week with an old camera - made in the late 1950s, so almost as old as me - and took photos in the woods and hills.

How could that be therapy? It might not be therapy for most folks, but for me it's therapy to take an old camera, exposure meter, several rolls of film and a tripod or monopod and head off into the hills for a few hours. Yes, I left the digital camera at home. And the camera I took was so old it doesn't even have a battery-powered light meter or focusing system. To take a photo requires an exposure reading with an old selenium meter, setting the exposure value on the camera lens, choosing an appropriate shutter speed and aperture for the subject and, sometimes with the help of a split-image rangefinder and sometimes just guesstimating, calculating the distanceand setting the focus ring so that the desired objects are within the depth of field to be in focus. Some exposure guesswork is required, too, because of the inability of the old meters to give accurate measurements in low light.

Of course, there's no instant results to see. Unlike digital, one can't check an LCD for proper exposure. But, sad to say, taking film to a local one-hour photo shop for processing and printing is no certain measure of success either. In fact, I'd guess the odds are no longer in my favor when I take film there.

While shooting film is good therapy for me, getting it properly processed and printed is a frustrating nightmare for which I'm still seeking an affordable solution. I can send my film to a professional color lab and obtain consistent results. The lab I like to use not only sends quality prints every time, it returns my negatives to me individually wrapped in protective coverings. The cost, however, is more than twice that of most nearby store labs - I guess you get what you pay for.

I used to be able to take exposed rolls of film to any number of little photo labs - some independent and some in drug stores and department stores - and obtain reasonably good results. It's not that way anymore.

I had used a large chain drug store, but quit when the photo tech told me I could just throw away my negatives after processing and use their digital film scans. I quit at another large department store when I watched the photo techs using their hands tosqueegee negatives and, when I asked one where lens cleaner was stocked, she suggested breathing on the lens and using my shirt to wipe it clean. I did find one inexpensive lab where I could drop off negatives and obtain good results, but things have gone downhill there too and I probably won't be going back with any film.

I tried a local camera shop last week. The camera store chain also processes film and scans it, so I didn't bother to order prints. But even though I've obtained good results there before, I am fearful because the camera tech that waited on me didn't think retaining the negatives was all that important after the scan and didn't know anything about the loss of image quality and exposure gradations in digital scans.

How frustrating! What's this world coming to? Guess I'll see what I get and then send off my negatives to a professional lab to have any desired images printed with an enlarger.

So, I'll see how my therapy works out. The film shooting is definitely of benefit. Film processing, on the other hand, is a negative in more ways than one - perhaps I should shoot positives and dig out my slide viewer. If I can find a way for the positives in shooting film to outweigh the negatives related to processing and printing, I expect I'll continue my therapy. If the negatives outweigh the positives and the frustration of finding any quality processing and printing becomes more of a burden then the benefits of time alone in the woods with a film camera, it could be I'll need to find an alternative therapy.

Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be reached by e-mail at rmoll@nwaonline .com.