BOMH Professional Development Grant Winner Report

Thank you to Best of Missouri Hands, I am finally starting a professional development project called “Biographical Portraits in Black and White Film”. Their grant allowed funding for a portion of my start up costs. It’s taken some time to research and order my equipment for my filming and darkroom. So far I’ve purchased a vintage (1969) medium format Pentax 6×7 camera with a 75mm and 200mm lens and a Beseler 23CII-XL Photo Negative Darkroom Enlarger w/Lens & Baseboard Photography which is still sitting in the box.

I’ve cleaned out a corner in my basement storage room and received 2 large worktables (thanks for the donation).Thanks to a very knowledgeable friend, Lynn Schaff, we spent a day on Main Street in historic St. Charles, MO and shot my first 4 rolls of film. Lynn helped me relearn and begin to truly understand the “Zone Method” of exposure formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer. I found The Darkroom Lab in CA that still develops film and sends scans of your prints.

I have a very long way to go in this project, but I’m so excited to finally start. It’s been a professional dream of mine for years to go back to my roots of film photography. 2022 will bring opportunities for Biographical Portraits!!!!

Debbie Kindschuh