Wow, December is already here. This December marks the 20th one for us here at The Dark Room. It’s almost unbelievable how quickly the years have sped past.
Reminiscing now, when we first opened we got phone calls asking stuff like, “Why in the world are you opening a darkroom in this day and age?” It was when the world was quickly shifting to digital cameras.
There were many reasons we opened: we loved monochrome photography, we loved darkroom work, we admired the photographer Koen Shigemori, we loved Kiyoshi Suzuki, too. But to answer the question of “Why now?”, I’d say, “Because it was fun and I couldn’t help myself.” (laughter)
Thinking back, we’ve met a lot of great people here. And twenty years is long enough to see some of our members pass away, too. All these people sympathized with the ideals espoused by a mere thirty-something (me!), helping me establish the organization and connecting me with others–they were mentors of life who taught me a lot. It occurs to me now that without them, we probably wouldn’t have The Dark Room and I would probably be even pricklier than I am now. I’m so thankful for them. And there’s something we all have in common: our love of photography. One person’s will even left all his photography equipment and photographs to The Dark Room. I remember spending days going through photographs, separating what the family should have and those to be kept by us.
I recently received news of another death. When I opened his membership work log file, there was a single postcard in there. I took a look and the pictures on it were of boats during the New Year’s firefighter displays. It seemed to say to me, “Hey Saito, times like this, when you revisit your original intentions, so much comes into view.”
As long as The Dark Room exists, all of the logged work of our members will remain indefinitely in our safekeeping. And all of those members, as precious as they are, will remain in my thoughts, too.
