Back in the late nineties, I had the bad fortune of belonging to the two most maligned clubs at my high school: the Huron Players drama club and the Gay-Straight Alliance. I was such an unpopular teenager–and, let’s be real, so very gay–that even the other drama kids didn’t like me. As a result I spent a lot of time in that haven of all self-conscious-to-the-point-of-paranoia, artsy teenagers. You guessed it: the dark room.

http://stykkisholmur.deviantart.com/art/Darkroom-Steps-202207801

The dark room had a lot of things going for it: 1) packed full of carcinogenic chemicals (great alternative for non-suicidal levels of gloominess–you’re still killing yourself, just VERY SLOWLY), 2) red light makes you feel like a vampire (bram stoker, not stephanie meyer, thank you very much), 3) the photographic development process is actual magic (science, shmience–I’ve seen it with my own two eyeballs), 4) darkness, obvs, and 5) the photography teacher did not…