Devaluation
Did you ever get so attached to something that you could not conceive of throwing it away?
Have you realized that you had not used something in so long and that you would probably never use it again? Have you thought, "Maybe I can sell this on Ebay or take it to Goodwill and get a tax write-off"? I have learned that there are some things even Goodwill Industries will not take. O, how a cherished object willy nilly tumbles in its valuation over time…such that it would unceremoniously be tossed in the dumpster.
I discovered 35 mm photography in 1975 and was hooked almost overnight. The natural evolution of this led to the darkroom and the magic of painting with light. At the peak of my hobby-mania I built a homemade tank for the purpose of developing 30X40 inch color prints in the basement. Many a night I would hit the darkroom at dusk and quit at dawn. I last worked in my home darkroom in 1995. The darkroom was doomed with the advent of digital cameras, deskjet printers that can print 13X19 inch photo quality, indexed digital photo albums, and, most importantly, finding the minimum required time to work in minutes rather than hours.I am a known pack rat hobbyist. I had kept the one-of-a-kind processing tank, the size of a small waterheater...hoping one day to get back into it…or find a good home for adoption. Surely someone would see the unique opportunity. Even the color enlarger was turned down by the local darkroom equipment dealer. “We have 3 just like it and no one is buying darkroom.” Then there was the homemade custom sink 24 by 90 inches and 5 feet tall. Unused for 10 years-it took up a large storage space.With much regret I threw the 40X10 tank and motorized agitator in the dumpster after there were no responses to classified ads. There were no takers for the sink. I was hoping to donate it to a school photolab. To avoid having to pay $100 just to have it hauled away I decided to take out some aggression with a sledge hammer. Then it was off to
spend eternity by way of the River Styx, also known as a county dump station. This is a fate equal to death of that object of creation, that tool now so depreciated that it’s not even good firewood. In my unholy attachment…I had to take a few pictures with which to remember it. It said that if something wasn’t recorded for posterity then it may have never happened. So, now it is reduced to magnetic ink.-James
Have you realized that you had not used something in so long and that you would probably never use it again? Have you thought, "Maybe I can sell this on Ebay or take it to Goodwill and get a tax write-off"? I have learned that there are some things even Goodwill Industries will not take. O, how a cherished object willy nilly tumbles in its valuation over time…such that it would unceremoniously be tossed in the dumpster.
I discovered 35 mm photography in 1975 and was hooked almost overnight. The natural evolution of this led to the darkroom and the magic of painting with light. At the peak of my hobby-mania I built a homemade tank for the purpose of developing 30X40 inch color prints in the basement. Many a night I would hit the darkroom at dusk and quit at dawn. I last worked in my home darkroom in 1995. The darkroom was doomed with the advent of digital cameras, deskjet printers that can print 13X19 inch photo quality, indexed digital photo albums, and, most importantly, finding the minimum required time to work in minutes rather than hours.I am a known pack rat hobbyist. I had kept the one-of-a-kind processing tank, the size of a small waterheater...hoping one day to get back into it…or find a good home for adoption. Surely someone would see the unique opportunity. Even the color enlarger was turned down by the local darkroom equipment dealer. “We have 3 just like it and no one is buying darkroom.” Then there was the homemade custom sink 24 by 90 inches and 5 feet tall. Unused for 10 years-it took up a large storage space.With much regret I threw the 40X10 tank and motorized agitator in the dumpster after there were no responses to classified ads. There were no takers for the sink. I was hoping to donate it to a school photolab. To avoid having to pay $100 just to have it hauled away I decided to take out some aggression with a sledge hammer. Then it was off to
spend eternity by way of the River Styx, also known as a county dump station. This is a fate equal to death of that object of creation, that tool now so depreciated that it’s not even good firewood. In my unholy attachment…I had to take a few pictures with which to remember it. It said that if something wasn’t recorded for posterity then it may have never happened. So, now it is reduced to magnetic ink.-James
posted by James at 12:18 AM
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