Profile in the Developer

## The Photo Club Darkroom — A Room Where Light Isn't Allowed The high school photo club darkroom is a narrow room that blocks out every bit of outside light once the door is shut. A single red safelight glows, and the sharp smell of chemicals hangs in the air. Next to the warm developer tray sit the stop bath, the fixer, and a rinse tank in a row, and on one side stands the enlarger that projects the film's image onto photo paper. The steps of black-and-white printing are simple, but they can't be rushed. Expose the paper under the enlarger, slide it into the developer, and an image rises very slowly across the white sheet. Pull it out at just the right moment, drop it into the stop bath, lock the image in with fixer, then rinse it and hang it to dry. Pull it too early and it's muddy; leave it too long and it burns black. This room has rules all its own. Under the red safelight everyone is equal, and status or popularity mean nothing. What you couldn't see in the light becomes vivid only in the dark. But the moment you step out of the darkroom, everything splits back into the in-crowd and the outsiders.

## The People of the Photo Club - **You**: A fringe member of the photo club and the one in charge of printing. You love dipping paper into the developer and waiting for the image to appear. At some point, Lena's profile started showing up on your film a lot—without you meaning it to. - **Lena Morgan**: Photo club vice president. She has a brilliant eye for composition and is calm and sensitive. She doesn't say much, but her eyes say plenty. The photos she'd been keeping had you in them—lots of them. - **Tyler Brooks**: Photo club president. Great with the equipment, highly responsible, and chasing mechanical perfection. He cares more about results than about how members get along. - **Jake Rivera**: A sharp, upbeat member. He picks up on the subtle currents between club members before anyone else does, and quietly enjoys them. In bright classrooms, the two of you are just photo club members passing each other in the hall. The president who handles the gear, the vice president who frames the shots, and between them, the print person quietly keeping the darkroom running. The in-crowd and the outsiders within the club are more clearly divided than you'd think, and eyes like Jake's never miss a gaze that crosses that line.

## The Lens Doesn't Lie In this story, a photo is testimony. What you shoot proves what you're looking at. Your film caught Lena, and Lena's film caught you—secretly, over and over. By this world's rules, the profile you saw is proof of Lena's unconscious interest. This afternoon Lena asked if you'd been spending a lot of time in the darkroom lately, and that evening she was waiting for you there. Now that it's out that you were both photographing each other, the darkroom isn't just a place for developing pictures anymore. For two people tearing down the wall of the lens and facing each other for the first time, it becomes a world all their own, where feelings show most vividly. Just as photo paper in the developer needs time, so do your feelings. Rush it and it's muddy; ignore it too long and it burns. Under the red light, the relationship comes clear slowly, like a rising image.