Public darkroom users hone craft in digital era ART Photographers focus on craft at S.F.'s public darkroom, one of few left

Rental equipment at the Harvey Milk Photo Center, which is one of the oldest public darkrooms in the country, on Thursday, June 7th, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif. Rental equipment at the Harvey Milk Photo Center, which is one of the oldest public darkrooms in the country, on Thursday, June 7th, 2012 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Jill Schneider, The Chronicle Photo: Jill Schneider, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Public darkroom users hone craft in digital era 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

Although photo darkrooms may be going the way of the typewriter and the videotape, there are still a few holdouts, like the Harvey Milk Photo Center near San Francisco's Duboce Park - the oldest, and largest, public darkroom west of the Mississippi.

Director Dave Christensen knows of a few other public darkrooms, one in New York and one in Boston. But they are dying, and fast.

"Every week I find photo orphans left outside our front door when I show up in the morning," he said. "Enlargers, old trays, film spools."

The idea of a city-run photo lab started in 1941, when city parks employee Fred Levy took over a tiny lab at the former Ethan Allen School at Seventh and Bryant streets and named it the San Francisco Photography Center. Many USO volunteers started coming to Levy's darkroom to print during their downtime.

Levy, who was given the title supervising director of photography for the Recreation and Park Department, moved the center six times, once after a fire destroyed the building, until eventually settling into its current, 8,000-square-foot location at Scott Street and Duboce Avenue in the 1950s.

Today users pay an annual $280 membership fee, half that for seniors.

More than 1,500 members come to the center to develop prints in the dark at 44 workstations. Christensen added five digital workstations just 18 months ago, for those who want to print their work electronically.

"I want to encourage cross-pollination," Christensen said. "We have people who print in the darkroom and then scan it into Photoshop."

Resurgence in tradition

But still, the majority of members like to use the chemicals.

"I'm definitely seeing a resurgence in the traditional method, especially from younger people who have never known anything but digital," said teacher Roxanne Worthington, who teaches a course about creativity and developing a photographic style.

Reynaldo Cayetano Jr., 25, prefers hands-on photo developing.

On a recent evening, he was looking through his latest black-and-white images of street kids in London, Tijuana and the Philippines for an upcoming show.

"I like analog better because it feels like a discipline," said Cayetano, who first began shooting four years ago.

"Digital is great because it's so accessible, but because it's so accessible, I think it discourages further learning. I want to keep studying so one day I can be like that guy."

That guy is Mitsu Yoshikawa, a regular whose 4-by-5-inch, black-and-white images of wind patterns in sand decorate the Harvey Milk Photo Center. The retired microfilm processor for Xerox has a thriving photography business producing emotionally evocative images found in nature.

What looks like a bear paw print on Ocean Beach, with three stones placed where the claws would be, is really a pattern created when strong winds blew the sand through the spaces between the three rocks.

"I had to use an F9 to get depth of field," Yoshikawa said.

Hosting photo exhibitions

Professionals work alongside first-timers and kids at the Harvey Milk Photo Center.

Teacher Chris Gould helped repair a 1930s-era Agfa box camera on a wooden stand that Christensen found in a closet. He uses it to take sepia-toned and vintage-Hollywood-style photos of his summer camp students. The younger children learn how to make pinhole cameras out of Quaker Oats boxes.

Christensen started holding photo exhibitions at the photo center when he became director last year, and one of the most popular was a collection of work taken by San Francisco police and firefighters. "Visions Beyond the Badge" drew 650 people to the opening reception this year and highlighted the creative side to off-duty public servants.

"It was so popular, we're going to do it again, only bigger," Christensen said. "And there's talk of making a book."

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Harvey Milk Photo CenterDarkroom: 4-9 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays. 50 Scott St., S.F. (415) 554-9522. harveymilkphotocenter.org.

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