Author: Faryn Borella
This Friday, Occidental’s only photography club, Oxy Shots, will open a darkroom on campus accessible to the entire student body. Since its founding, the group has placed the darkroom at the top of its agenda.
“We decided to prioritize the darkroom over other things we were doing because it was hard to garner much interest the way we were trying to start, and decided rather to give people a place to learn more about photography,” Co-President of Oxy Shots Samuel Jackson (sophomore) said. The club soon discovered that a darkroom already existed under Norris Green, but was out of commission. Oxy Shots went to the Associated Students of Occidental College (ASOC), asking for funding to reopen the darkroom.
The darkroom will be completely student-run, and whenever open, a student volunteer will be on duty to make sure everything is running smoothly. The tentative hours are every weeknight, and all day Saturday and Sunday.
To gain year-round access to the darkroom students will have to pay a minimal fee of approximately $10. This fee will cover the darkroom’s chemicals, paper and other expenses. Additionally, the club will be purchasing film cameras that will be accessible to all who paid the membership fee to borrow as they please.
“I think a lot of people made a lot of sacrifices to come to a school like Oxy, which is academically rigorous, and I know one of those sacrifices for me was not having a developed arts and photography program,” Jackson said. “Therefore, we wanted to give something that would be completely open to the public and make photography a really accessible thing at Oxy.”
Although the field is becoming much more focused on the digital, Jackson believes that the darkroom still has its place in photography.
“I believe that being digital kind of removes you from the process of photography. Shooting with film really slows you down and makes you more conscious of the decisions you make.”
“It’s much truer to the art form of photography, but it also holds you way more accountable,” Co-President of Oxy Shots Kyle Scoble (sophomore) said.
ASOC agreed that the darkroom would be a beneficial addition to campus and the artistic community.
“I think most people in the ASOC were pretty down to support the club,” ASOC Funding Chair Kyle Boers (sophomore) said. “It’s a student initiative, and students wanted it.”
Students, including sophomore Robbie Thomas (sophomore) and Jackson, founded Oxy Shots in the spring of last year, and the club became official this past fall.”
We decided off the bat that we wanted to provide a community for photographers on campus—give them an outlet to work within what they already learned about photography and develop it further through critique and sharing their work with other students,” Jackson said.
Jackson and Scoble decided to prioritize the darkroom this year, feeling that having a physical space where students could go and develop their art form would really help the club to grow and gain recognition.
Oxy Shots has a lot more coming up in the future as well. They plan on continuing meetings where students can have their work critiqued, and the club also wants to bring in Marc Campos, Occidental’s photographer, to give demonstrations.
“We’re also looking to get a show up in early to mid-April in the Green Bean, so look out for that,” Scoble said.
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