CVA Photo Lab Memory

Six years ago today, the CVA Photo Lab announced it's closing schedule. I managed those labs (large B&W lab, a color lab, a film processing lab, an alternative processes lab, and a digital lab) and taught in the Photo dept and Foundation dept when CVA announced it was closing.

Sad day indeed.

One Less Color Processor in the Metro

The College of Visual Arts held it's last class on Friday, May 3, 2012. The night before, I drained and powered down our 31" Kreonite color processor. The next day, I found a work-study student changed the background of the equipment checkout computer in the Photo Lab to this:

Click to enlarge.

"Taking the color processor off life support. It's official - she's dead."

That's a photo of my hand unplugging the processor for the last time. Brunhilda, rest in peace. May you be resurrected someday.

A Semester's Worth of 35mm Film

I saved all the 35mm film cartridges from the Photo Lab last semester at the College of Visual Arts. Here are all 225 torn-open film cartridges that were processed last semester between 2 Intro to Photo classes:

Click to enlarge


Click to enlarge

Just for fun.

"Everything The Light Touches..."

I found this recently on the revolving door at the CVA Photo Lab:

Analog Photo Mini-Documentary

Julian Williams, a filmmaking student at MCAD, just got done making a 5 minute documentary. His subject matter was photography students who choose to work analog in a growing "digital world." He focused on 3 photography majors at CVA (where I teach and manage the photo labs, and also my alma mater).

Here's Julian's video:

Direct link: http://youtu.be/UvIXCFxgzgI

I love Geoff's 2 opening lines at the 0:25 mark. It's very.... "Geoff."

The darkrooms seen in the video are from our photo labs at CVA. It's fun to see them as part of this.

The entire documentary is really nicely done... but as a "photo guy," I really enjoyed the closing credits. Of course.

Opening of the New Photo Labs at CVA

Last night was the "Grand Opening Celebration" for the new CVA Photo Lab. (BTW, if you aren't a fan of the CVA Photo Lab on Facebook, become one now!) There were a lot of people there, and I was able to chat with some old and new "photo friends."

Here are some photos from last night:

Goodies (many of them were made by members of our own photo faculty)


The "loungy" area directly outside of the B&W lab - notice
the magnetic wall used for instant critique space!


Faculty, staff, and students starting to file-in to the new studio


Ann Ledy (the president of CVA in the red glasses) thanking those who made
the new labs possible - there were a LOT of people who did a LOT of work!


Students getting ready to present thank you gift baskets
to Shawn, Grant, John, and I. Thanks students!


Some of my work-study lab assistants found the extra food once everyone had left...


My gift basket from the students


Probably the most random gift basket I've ever received... Thanks photo students (and Emma!)

Thanks to EVERYONE who showed up in support of the Photo Program last night! What a fun time!

I'll have some pretty dramatic "before-and-after" photos of the photo lab spaces posted in the next week or 2. Check back for those and become a fan of the CVA Photo Lab on Facebook!

Photo Area Open House

Stop by and check out the new photo labs at CVA! We have a new B&W lab, Color lab, film processing area, Digital Darkroom, and check-out area. That's a completely brand new photo department!

Here are 2 photos from the months past. This first photo shows the B&W lab full of boxes from the beginning of Sept:

And this photo shows the lab as it's getting ready to open a week later:

Stop by Thursday evening and check out our new space! See you there!