The Dark Room

Aaron Pitchel and Joey Peters

“No one ever believed me when I said that I spent first grade in the dark room developing film and printing pictures.” – William Jelinek

“I can smell the developer and fixer now!” – David Rosenbaum

Darkroom show at Annabel Taylor on Cornell campus.
With Jim Houghton’s mom

“…developed under horrid conditions in our darkroom, former broom closet, under the stairwell….  I had to write a grant for supplies for the photography group.” – Bill Mutch

Looking at the show – is that the Lichtenbaum parents?

“developing black and white photographs in the darkroom” – Rex Nordheimer

“. ..about to take first photo with B&W film, East German EXA camera. … I think Jordan got the Retina and Ward the Argus. Joe Puryear gave me $45 and commissioned me to buy one camera for each of the three. It was a challenge to choose the personality.” – Bill Mutch

“East Hill was a Shangri-La for me — … Now would be a good time to apologize to Bill Mutch for driving him nuts and to thank him for cultivating the gift of noticing. I’m forever grateful for the camera/darkroom lessons, which have been a fulfilling through-line for decades.” – Jackie Scoones

“It’s true! People look at me with that funny, disbelieving look, and say; “Really? WoW!”, when I tell them about our darkroom and our photo outings too. 
Yep! Thank You Bill Mutch, Dan Lee, and all the other adults there and then! Inspiration, a little supervision and some simple equipment; that’s the recipe! 
Less of what we’ve got and more of what we had sure would be a good thing right about now.” – Steve Halton

Jordan Puryear with his new camera

“The photography program was a near total success except for nearly losing Jordan Puryear when he got swept over the dam at Flatrocks while testing out our underwater camera.  We did some really dumb things.” – Bill Mutch  

Published by Karen Carr

Dr. Karen Carr is Associate Professor Emerita, Department of History, Portland State University. She holds a doctorate in Classical Art and Archaeology from the University of Michigan. Follow her on Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook, or buy her book, Vandals to Visigoths.

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