Analog artistry in FOTO 205

By Kristal Hanson     2/25/25 11:42pm

At a time when digital photography is instantaneous and ever-present, FOTO 205 offers something different — a return to the patience of film photography. Taught by Eli Greene, the course introduces students to film photography, darkroom techniques and the fundamental concepts behind the photographic medium.

“A lot of the students that I have in the class have grown up making images,” Greene said. “But working with film photography is a very different sort of way, that slows you down in your thinking about image making, sort of conceptually and also technically.”

Before students even pick up a film camera, they begin the course with photograms: images made by placing objects on photosensitive paper and exposing them to light.

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“Before we even start working with film and processing film and developing our negatives, we’re thinking about the possibilities embedded in photography and what it means to work with a medium that’s formulated all around working with light,” Greene said. “So we really start with a project called photograms, where we make images before we even start using the camera.”

Sid Richardson College junior Radhani Kapoor said she was surprised by this approach. 

“I didn’t realize how much exploration of just understanding light would happen before we even got to cameras,” Kapoor said. “It really helped me understand how photos are going to show up once I started using a black-and-white camera.”

The course requires students to engage with photography in a tactile, deliberate way. Unlike digital photography, where images appear instantly, film development is a multi-step process that requires working in near-total darkness.

“There’s something really beautiful about a medium that sort of affects how you’re learning to see and shapes how you see the world, but we do that through working in almost total darkness,” Greene said. “You’re relying on sound, on touch. You’re taking apart your film and loading it onto canisters, and in order to understand how to do that, you really need to log it as muscle memory.”

This hands-on approach, without immediate feedback introduces challenges, Kapoor said. 

“You take a full roll of 36 pictures, go into the darkroom, put it in chemicals to develop it, and you can’t see how any of them turned out,” Kapoor said. “And for me, three-fourths of my pictures turned out blank.”

Greene said she sees these ‘mistakes’ as part of the learning process. 

“This class really teaches students to appreciate and sometimes lean into a mistake or failure and see what that might be offering to them,” Greene said. “You’ll have the techniques and tools to learn how to make a quote-unquote perfect image, but you’ll also have the conceptual strategies to think about, ‘What is a perfect image?’ and ‘What kind of image do I want to be making?’”

For Sofia Adams-Giron, who is majoring in visual and dramatic arts and art history, this aspect of the class has been particularly rewarding. 

“As an artist, I tend to work with more traditional materials,” said Adams-Giron, a Sid Richardson sophomore. “This class is amazing. I believe in the handmade, mechanical and traditional. And the power of the human hand.”

Currently, FOTO 205 is taught in the basement of Herzstein Hall, a space repurposed from its original use by the physics department. With only seven enlargers — devices used to project a negative onto photosensitive paper to create a larger print — the class is capped at 14 students per semester. That will change with the opening of Sarofim Hall, which will include a new, state-of-the-art darkroom.

“In Sarofim, there will be a brand-new darkroom, which is really exciting, and it will have 13 enlargers,” Greene said. “So I can teach 13 students in each section, and for the first time in a while, I'll be offering a next level to 205, a 206 class, which will go into advanced darkroom techniques and alternative printing processes.”

Students recognize the opportunity this presents. For students like Stella Shrinsky-de Armas, a visual and dramatic arts major, having access to this type of facility is a rare opportunity. 

“In my mind, I’m thinking of 80s movies where you see people pinning up photos with the red light. But it really is like that. It’s really, really cool,” said Shrinsky-de Armas, a McMurtry College freshman. “Every time I’m working with something that involves mixing chemicals, it makes me take art more seriously. It reminds me that these processes have existed forever.”

Beyond technical skills, FOTO 205 changes how students approach photography. Without the convenience of snapping hundreds of images on a phone, students must think critically about each frame. Kapoor said that the process forces mindfulness. 

“You have to be more careful about how you’re using your photos and how you’re actually capturing things that are meaningful to you,” Kapoor said.

Greene encourages students to carry their cameras with them at all times, ready for unexpected moments. 

“I think I encourage students to sort of follow the light and follow their curiosity,” Greene said. “It’s a very different way of thinking than we might use our digital cameras.”

For many students, that shift in mindset goes beyond the FOTO 205 classroom. According to Shrinsky-de Armas, the class reinforces the importance of slowing down. 

“I’ll feel creative, and I’ll want to do something and I’ll get so excited I’ll knock all my paint water on the floor,” Shrinsky-de Armas said. “With this kind of thing, it forces me to slow down, which is a really important step for me in all creative processes.”

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