A new black and white beginning...

How it started...

After a visit to my families holiday home and a dig around the attic, I came  across my great-grandmothers Olympus 35mm wind-up.  As a bit of a fan of the retro look and feel, I was instantly eager to learn more...starting with how to open the back cover to see if there was a film inside!  Although there are very few buttons on the camera itself, I took a totally noobish approach to this 'new' toy...however, I finally got there and released the back casing to reveal.....(anticipation...)...nothing! However, it was clean inside, and nothing was rattling or seemed broken.  I obviously would know if anything was broken, but to my novice eye, it all looked tip top.  I then realised that our next door neighbour, a close friend of the family, was seriously into his photography and might even have a spare film for me....fingers crossed at this stage!

Little did I know how successful crossing my fingers proved to be...

As I met the neighbour I instantly realised that he knew exactly what he was talking about and more than that - he really wanted to share this knowledge of his.  Firstly he gave me a book which fully explained the 'in's and out's' of photography and then demonstrated a lot of this knowledge in a short lecture-type talk...I was learning lots and if I was ever in doubt of his passion then a quick glance around his wonderful house revealed a mirriad of beautiful photos, all in black and white and totally awe inspiring.

The dark room...

We both had a look in his dark room where he showed me all his chemicals, enlargers, films and processers...I was beginning to get lost, it was a fun world to be lost in, but lost all the same.  He gave me a chilled film for my little 35mm, inserted it into the camera, wound it up and then told me that it was a 72 exposure so I had a lot of clicking to do...all with one rule to bare in mind...

--- "look, then click" ---

This was an idea more than a rule and one that he thought was very important for me to grasp.  A couple of days past and I returned to my new master...