Plugged in: How Columbia Brew staffers and students in darkroom photography class use technology

Every student uses devices during class, whether they’re writing an English essay on their district-issued MacBook or taking photos for the yearbook. We covered a few students that use technology in different ways. Some use cameras to take photos for darkroom photography class while others use online ordering systems in our student-run coffee shop.

Shoot, expose, enlarge, repeat.

This process continued to repeat during her first semester of her sophomore year. During a 90-minute class period, sophomore Addi Hall shot for her next darkroom photography project. 

“I liked the creative freedom,” Hall said. “Our last project that we did before the final was where we had to tell a comprehensive story of connected ideas that weren’t necessarily the same thing.”

Between taking photos on her phone in museums or on a trip with her friends, Hall was ready to advance in the camera she was using and started learning the tedious process of darkroom.

As Hall developed photos, she noticed how much time the process takes and the repetitive aspect of darkroom. 

Every 30 seconds for seven minutes she would spin the photo, then every minute for seven minutes and finally complete the process by spinning the photo every 30 seconds for 12 minutes — her least favorite part of developing photos. 

But having the ability to take control of her projects made all the patience needed for darkroom photography worth it.

“If you don’t think you’re specifically artistic you can still do darkroom,” Hall said. “You can find a different way to express the art that you might be able to make.”

Commuting with her classmates to downtown Kansas City for the day, junior Zoe Chaney got ready to walk outside to take photos of buildings, highway signs and neon lights — anything that was worth printing.

“The first time we went into a dark closet to take our film out and put them in the rollers so that we could put them in the dye and process them it was pitch black and you couldn’t see anything,” Chaney said. “It was funny the first time because no one knew what they were doing.”

Chaney was used to being surrounded by cameras as her mom and stepdad were involved in advertising agencies along with her sister who had been involved in darkroom photography for three years in high school.

However, darkroom photography was a surprise for Chaney after not knowing what the class would be like because she’d been used to digital cameras. She was greeted with five different methods of projects and free rein to create what she wanted.

“I didn’t know anything about [the class] because I feel like in a lot of classes when you go into it, you kind of have an idea of what’s going to be like,” Chaney said. “I had zero idea what it was gonna be like, and it was fun learning all the history of photography.”

Junior Hattie Brooks sat in her grandpa’s dark basement listening to the clicking of the photo projector. 

Brooks’s grandpa Ken Mantel stood flipping through his collection of films.

Birthday parties, Halloween, pool days, baseball games, ruffled shirts, the same green couch in her grandpa’s house and chocolate cake for her mom’s birthday.

“It’s so cool to be able to really see what was happening and there’s so much love that goes into that,” Brooks said. “He brought the camera with him and then went through the process of developing it just to get this one memory that he can physically hold which is so cool.”

Brooks was familiar with these photos, much like she was familiar with how Mantel’s basement version of a darkroom worked after taking darkroom photography her freshman year.

“It’s more special when you actually go out and shoot the film,” Brooks said. “Then you’re developing it and making it into something all by yourself. It’s like writing a letter to someone.”

After taking the class for two semesters, Brooks appreciates how personal it is to be able to hold and print her own photos. She got a more thorough experience of enhancing photos and connecting them back to the flashing photos on her grandpa’s white basement walls. 

Columbia Brew is East’s student-run coffee shop, and technology is essential to the success of their business. Here’s how they use social media and online ordering systems as tools to run their business.