Last night I started my 8-week darkroom class.  I also recruited my neighbor, Jay, to come along.  Once I stepped into the darkroom, the smell of the chemicals just gave me a nostalgic feeling of excitement.  I haven’t done this in about 12 years but found a bunch of old negatives and some unused paper in my stash so I was ready to go.  Last night we got a refresher on how the enlarger works, what the times were on the developing chemicals, and learned where all the supplies are stored.  Jerry, our instructor, did a demonstration on one photo and showed us how he makes test strips and how he dodges and burns a photo to get the exposure right.  He also surprised each of us with four free rolls of black and white film that he got from a Fuji Film distributor.  Sweet!  I didn’t get to print anything yet because we ran out of time but we’ll have plenty of time in the next 7 weeks.  Our class has only 4 students enrolled and get the whole darkroom to ourselves for 3 straight hours per week.  I also got a free pass to the open studio for the 8 weeks that we’re in the course.  Let the printing begin!!