Processing Film Rolls in Labs

 

Don’t stare. It’s rude.

Mama and grandma were right, but sometimes I can’t help myself when I see tourists taking pictures of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights  or dancers during National Indigenous People’s Day.

They have cameras with zoom and wide angle lenses, not me and my Mickey Mouse cellphone. I had such camera hardware once, before I believed the hype that digital cameras will bury film rolls. What happened to my first camera, a Nikon I bought with wages from a housekeeping summer job in a London hotel? My second camera was a Canon. I don’t remember the models. Why must cameras have numbers e.g. Nikon EE45 or Canon EE75?

I kept them in the same camera bag until, the Fuji film processing laboratory I was using went out of business. I cannot forget Fuji colours, a deep green and yellow lines. Other labs followed suit and we lived in a big city. They said business was down because of digital cameras. That is when I got rid of my analog cameras and lenses.

Therefore, I was surprised when I saw this poster outside a photography store last week. I couldn’t believe it. They told us film processing was dead. If only I had known. I would have kept my cameras and associated hardware.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.