South Bank black and white film shoot

South Bank IMAX Theatre ~ Philli Overton

One of the highlights of my Visual Arts certificate was having the opportunity to work in a darkroom, and to fully appreciate the fundamentals of film photography, you of course shoot using film.

South Bank Parklands ~ Philli Overton

These are two of my highlights from a roll of film that I shot around South Bank Parklands in Brisbane, Australia over the space of a few hours using a roll of 35 mm Ilford PLUS 400 black & white film. The roll of film was then developed in the darkroom of TAFE Queensland's Photography building at their South Bank campus, giving me the experience of working with an enlarger and producing a proof sheet and the two above finished 8" x 10" prints as a reminder of my time.

South Bank black & white photoshoot, March 2024 ~ Philli Overton

Unlike Photoshop which enables you to make adjustments with a few clicks of a button, correcting the contrast and light and dark areas of a photo in a darkroom involves a process known as dodge and burn. Like everything in a darkroom, it is backwards. More light from the enlarger head makes the areas of the image darker, less light equals makes an area lighter. The above photo of the lilypond shows the finished result of my conducting an orchestra of hand movements to direct more and less light to different areas of this image to produce a pleasing image. And of course, all of this happens in a darkroom, meaning you have to pre-visualize what you are doing before the lights go out.

It can be a world of fun to get one's head around, and now that my certificate has been completed this may well have been the only opportunity for me to learn darkroom processing and gain an appreciation for a lost artform.

Philli O.