Back when my two youngest were ‘the little girls’

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My youngest daughter, the one who’s in Thailand now, adopted the above image as her new profile picture on Facebook. As I said in response, this is one of my favorite pictures I ever shot — perhaps one of my favorites that I ever saw.

It shows my two youngest. This was back when they were known in the family as “the little girls.” We had the three “big kids” who were close together in age, then a five-year gap, then the little girls.

Now they’re grown, like the big kids.

This was also back when I was still using my Nikon 8008, an awesome camera that now sits in a drawer because dealing with film is such an expensive hassle. I used to shoot black-and-white all the time — this was probably shot either on Tri-X or T-Max — which I would develop at home, and make my own prints. I would close off a bathroom that had no windows, set up my enlarger, put towels down at the crack under the door, and spend a whole Saturday printing.

This is one of those prints. The resolution is a little soft (actually, we would have referred to focus and grain rather than “resolution”), but that’s the way it was with 400 ASA film with ambient light indoors. But that’s one of the things that makes the picture work.

Tempus fugit.

5 thoughts on “Back when my two youngest were ‘the little girls’”

  2. Ralph Hightower

    Shoot color negative film (C-41) and drop it off at the corner drugstore. There is also C-41 B&W film available: Kodak BW400CN and Ilford XP2. But, for traditional B&W film, I’ve had to send it out of state for developing.

    1. Brad Warthen

      I’ve always developed and printed B&W at home. But I guess I’d have to mail-order the chemicals these days.

      I’ve never trusted commercial processors with black-and-white. They were always so oriented to color. It was like they didn’t even try on the prints, and that made me not trust them on the film, either. And if you don’t do the film just right, that’s the ball game…

  3. Kathryn Fenner

    How’s about a shout out to the amazing Miz Dubs on Mother’s Day. The woman is a treasure!

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