Dear Rite Aid on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (No. 2),
We met today. I usually go to the other Rite Aid on Manhattan Ave, the one that used to be a roller rink. The cooler one with more personality, but I came to you today for for a reason.
To be more specific, for the big plastic red block letters that proudly read “1 Hour Photo” on your front. I wandered about Greenpoint and Williamsburg today with a purpose in the heat: to find the last stronghold of film developing labs in the neighborhood I had managed to convince myself would still have them. In the land of vintage clothing stores, record shops and organic vegan food, gourmet soy icecream and the Endless Summer Taco Truck, and with all the photographers and artists in the area, you’d think there would be ONE shop that still develops black and white film? Well, you’d think wrong.
I was heartbroken, I admit. Despite my admiration for technology, there is a nostalgic love I have for black and white photography. The smell of chemicals in the darkroom. The satisfaction that the photograph is yours, from the moment you put the roll of film into your manual zoom, manual focus, manual aperture and shutter speed adjustment camera, through the minutes locked in the dark where you blindly roll the film onto reels, to the good half hour or more of chemical mixing, measuring, developing, the hour of drying and quick run for coffee, the snipping of film strips into convenient easy-to-carry strips; (and boy, this is a run on sentence) the contact sheets; the test strips; the loving focus and timing adjustments of the enlargers; the chemical baths of each glorious print you make; the washing, drying; mounting and final print. It is a laborious process, but who ever said that love is easy? I love photoshop and digital photography, don’t get me wrong…I’m not some sort of purist…but there is something so amazing about film photography that can’t be replaced. It is something about the silver halite grain, or the hours spend in the dark room, alone with these images. There is something in the magic of the image appearing on a white sheet of paper when it hits the chemicals. There is something magical about light when you spend several hours in darkness looking at how it works and how it can be harnessed for art. There is something akin to love that comes about in this process, in which every shot, every print is like a child. I love photography. I love everything about it…so you can imagine how very sad I was to discover on a beautiful romantic, summery Saturday afternoon that film photography is on its way out in Greenpoint/Williamsburg.
Never before has my beloved film photography felt like such an albatross around my neck.
Perhaps this is why I was so irked when I came to your doors, Rite Aid. Now, I’m not blaming you for the changing technological trends in photography. Perhaps it is unfair for me to address this letter solely to you. Perhaps I should be angry with “Greenpoint Photography”, Enla’s Photo, or any of the other numerous places that no longer develop black and white film. You may say that perhaps I should be angry with myself for running out of printing time before finals, or with Queens College’s photography lab or B&H and Adorama for being closed on Saturdays and perhaps you are right…but I think it’s time we talked you and I.
It’s time we talked about this mysterious concept of “one hour photo”. Let me go first, as you have been utterly silent in my tirade thus far. In my understanding, “1 hour photo” implies that a service is provided in which one person, or the photographer, drops off whatever he or she recorded his or her images on, and you, the “1 hour photo” service provider, would develop and/or print these photographs in an hour.
Clearly I’m wrong. Clearly your definition of “1 hour photo” is more correct: a well-hidden, extremely messy counter in the far corner of the store, with confusing signage, broken registers, and no one working the registers. Maybe by “1 hour photo” you meant “1 hour wait for someone to come out and talk to you”, but even this I’d believe. What I would never have dreamed in my wildest imaginations is that “1 hour photo” is a service in which you ship out film to be developed off site and returned in 1 to 3 business days.
Rite Aide, the only thing “1 hour” about your photo service is the amount of time after returning home after our encounter that I wanted to curl up into a ball, clutch my rolls of films to myself and cry. It’s the time it took me to walk home stopping at any establishment that looked like it had anything to do with photography. It is less than the amount of time it would have taken me to develop the film myself with 1billion times the love.
Maybe I’m living in the wrong time period. Maybe my photography is outdated. Maybe I am too much a product of my childhood in the 90s (gasp! so long ago) where film developing places were located on every block. Maybe I’m the ridiculous one in this situation, and you are pioneering the future with you merchandise-strewn aisle floors, “shut on my while I’m still walking” automatic doors and depressing supermarket music, but I will not have you make these outlandish claims to my face, nor will I ever trust you with either my film or my digital photography.
I am extremely disappointed in you. Perhaps someday you will change: either improve your film developing, or remove the yard-tall lettering on your facade, but I didn’t need you “someday” I needed you this Saturday, and you let me (and my photography) down.
Sincerely,
-Natalia Donofrio
