Developing Our Negatives into Positives

 

 

 

One day, in the timed release of the shutter of my mind, the aperture of my thought process opened wider, leading to the development of a philosophy and the exposure of an idea. They say a picture tells a thousand words, but my words will tell you about a thousand pictures. So picture this, if you will, and take a snapshot of this concept:

Unless you have the perfect job—or the perfect life—we’ve all focused on the negatives from time to time in our careers and our lives, right? Many times in the past, in jest I’ve commented on a prior job in which I dealt with a great many negatives, a job I had as manager of a one-hour photo lap, where we developed film and in allegorical fashion worked with a countless number of negatives. On my way home from work yesterday, inspired in part by a person at work whose negativity seems to know no bounds, and a reminder of the metaphoric negatives I dealt with in my former job, I reflected on my old photo-lab career and decided to write about the topic.  So let’s read along and see what develops, shall we?

For those more attuned in this age to digital media and imagery, here is a brief but relevant reminder of the films we used so often in the age of yesteryear…

Strips of print film are called negatives, while rolls of slide film—the individual frames--are called transparencies, positive film. Film negatives are like some of the things in our life that bring us down when we see them for what they really are, or aren’t. On film, what is light is actually dark, and what is dark is really light. Colors appear as opposite of what they really are on the light spectrum; false colors, deceptive, never appearing as they really are. It is enough to say that when you look at negatives, you don’t always know for sure what you are looking at and you can be easily fooled by the deception of perception.
In slides however, positives, the hues and tones are true to life, reflecting natural colors and accurate depictions. Not many people used positives--except mainly professionals—and we did not process slide film in our lab. Not many of those films were sold on a daily basis, but we did sell them.

On a typical day; in fact, every day: Customers handed me their film all day long; all day long, they gave me their negatives. Lining the back counter were rolls and rolls of negative film waiting to be developed. In the catch tray atop the film processor were many just-processed negatives waiting to be retrieved and hung. Hanging on metal trees next to the printer were dozens of strips of negatives waiting to be printed. On another tree beside the sorting table were many negatives waiting to be cut and packaged. In the storage bins were hundreds of bags of finished prints and negatives waiting for their customers to pick up.

 Everywhere you looked, there were negatives, and if you didn’t enjoy the job, that was something to become negative about indeed! However if you looked hard past the developed negatives, the hanging negatives, and the stored negatives, you would spot on the supply shelf the boxes of slide film, the positives.

In the cabinets below those shelves was where we kept our stock, boxes and boxes of film stacked front to back, side to side, and top to bottom. The majority were of negative print film, that being the majority of what we normally sold; but stacked up in a smaller area admittedly outnumbered by the negatives, were the packages of positive slide film. The positives were there all right, surrounded by negatives, you just had to look harder to find them.

Now ask, what did I do with the negatives after they were developed? Most people aside from Fhlehm and Goober Johnson have seen a one hour lab and have a basic idea of how they work, at least on the most basic level, right? We took the negatives, but instead of focusing on them, we used light to shine through them and cast images onto photographic paper. Then, after some twists and turns through fluids and heat, out came the finished prints, which were in and of themselves positive images. So from the negatives, via light and transformation, came the positives.

How are you using light and personal transformation to turn negatives into positives?
Back in the day, from time to time I had to remind my employees not to let anything an irate customer said in rudeness get them upset; to let it fly right over their heads. That reminds me of a particular customer who was irate and insulting, upset that he was sold slide film by mistake. I found his unceasing tirade to be quite negative despite my apologies, but his demeanor was no more improved when I suggested that perhaps what he needed were more positives in his life anyway. Some people just come for the negatives, all they want is to develop their negatives, and you just can’t sell them on the positives.

Who else enjoys the positives in life? I know I do, do you? We just have to look for them on the dusty shelves of our stock of negatives. As a former photographer and photo manager, I could sell you negatives all day long, but I’ll wager you’d much rather come for the positives, don’t you agree?

So now what?

Why not move forward with a brighter, wider outlook in a search for the positives, and see what develops? Let the positivity and the passion for life shine through the dark negatives, and let it be your inspire-shine. Your shine comes from your confidence in yourself, your passion for what you love doing, your creativity, and who you are inside. The true light comes from God, so don’t rely only on your light and turn from His, but still use your light—and His—to shine through the negatives and turn them into positives!
 

Shine on!