Hi everyone, my name is ChocolateScorpi,
but you can call me whatever you like, as long as it's not boring!
So I was introduced to this community just a few days ago by 
Until coming into this community and seeing what you guys are up to these days with such 'historical' tools/techniques/skills (which I've pretty much forgotten...)
So I have been wanting to do a project for many years and now back in lockdown no.6, finally I have the time to do it.
And that is to scan and digitise all of my photos and negatives from the 70/80/90's as they are all deteriorating in a number of ways and I have thousands to do- and that's just the photos...
I've set my scanner on empty boxes up at chest height so I can stand and dance while I scan...🤣 True...Got to move, can't sit all day on my bum on peakd...Don't use it, you lose it...
And this great little scanner I bought about 10-11 yrs ago for $70 aud and it scans 6x4 photos; negatives- both B&W and colour, + slides and business cards and pretty much anything else you can fit in there. Larger things I scan on my old Epson xp-950.
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So back in the mid 80's I studied Video/Film/Photography in high school and grew up in a small town (which is still small....🤐...) and I worked in a few minilabs every afternoon after school until I was offered a f/t job.
The first mini lab was an Agfa lab housed in the only dry cleaning business...anyway, this was about 1984/5 and the machines were old even back then, to the point that to develop the negative, I had to put the rolls of films- 35/110/120mm into a round developing machine, where I would put my hands into the black sleeves and manually crack open the cartridges with my fingers, then completely blind, thread them onto the spool and poke that onto the rod to take each roll through the compartments of chemicals. Now that I think about it, it was a it like surgery, because absolutely everything a to be precise because you couldn't risk anything going off track and jamming ALL of the negs in the machine (which may have happened once on another machine..😳....)
Anyway, other than having to manually calibrate the printing machine each morning, I can't remember too much about that lab- except for the time that the whole other 2 staff that worked in the dry cleaning section came screaming out yelling run, RUN RUN!...apparently the pressure had somehow built up so much they thought it was going to explode..which apparently back then, they did do....
However I do remember being lucky enough to make friends with the photographer who not only used me as his model (all legit and legal mind you..), but who taught me all that you could do in a B&W darkroom.
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Anyway, from then, I was hired by Kodak lab with much newer machines AND was taken in and taught colour printing in the colour darkroom too!
And while I was doing all of that after school, I was also running around school taking photos for the school yearbooks and using the B&W darkroom there too.
Then at 16 I was offered a f/t job in a Konica lab, where I was able to utlise all of the previous skills that I had learn't and learn even more when they hired a f/t professional photographer who had just moved to town..And so I became her sidekick and even assisted her and her dad as we videoed local weddings and events, which was the catalyst for me wanting to become a cinematographer.
Unfortunately back in those days though, there was only 1 school to learn that in in Sydney and out of 850-ish applicants a year, they only accepted about 25 so what chance did a young girl from the country have getting in there when the competition came from private schools... (and you know what, not much has changed either..)
Anyway, so I left town anyway in 87 and moved around working in a wide variety of minilabs just on the machines with no more darkroom work, until about 92 when I fell into hospitality and moved around using that instead.
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Although there was also a couple of stints in there traveling around Australia with the Batmobiles and Looney Tunes cars, taking photos of the tourists at Seaworld with the Batmobile with this HUGE Polaroid camera....BEFORE movie world was built and I have the photos and newspaper articles to prove all of that thank you very much Movie World- Don't I Sophie Lee....( I just haven't scanned them yet, but they're there on the pile...)
This photocopy of the front page of the Gold Coast Bulletin is courtesy of the Gold Coast Bulletin circa 1990-ish
I still took photos with my old Konica slr something or other and my Tamron 35-170/270 lens- I think it was (it was BIG) until somehow I ended up buying an automatic Kodak to take overseas with me and they're the photos that I'm scanning now.
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Anyhoooo...Since moving to Melbourne in 2005, I've come full circle as I spent my first 5yrs down here producing a social justice current affairs show for C31 the community channel and now have my own little vid pro house (but don't do a lot of commissions these day- just trying to get my own stuff on air..) and take a truckload of photos with my (highly overrated) iphone...
And now I've come back even more full circle, as I'm now focusing on getting my own analogue photos digitised, (I've already done about 98% of mum's old B&w's from the 1940's+ and up)
as well as being the custodian with 
and these are just the tapes that I shot with back in 2005-2009- Raw footage up there
And broadcast masters down there...
Yeah I LOVED working in minilabs and Darkrooms! I loved pushing buttons even back then and that was about 3yrs before our high school got any computers...and NOW I FREAKING LOVE COMPUTERS and the entire digital world..I mean it's totally crazy what you can do with digital- the tools just in photoshop alone...
Anyway, I hope that I didn't bore you too much, but I really look forward to seeing what everyone in here is doing and learning from you all!
And that is me- or rather several parts of a much larger and far more colourful story..as not only am I https://chocolatescorpion.com but I am also https://chocolatescorpionc.wixsite.com/chocolatescorpi too
Thanks so much for reading and if you did make it this far before rolling your eyes and falling asleep (which I won't blame you...), you are an absolute champion!!!
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And unless otherwise stated- ALL photographs, are all my originals taken by me sometime in the past decade or so somewhere in my travels (like today in my kitchen...lol.. 🤣..) and as such, ofcourse they are subject to all international IP and copyright laws and I may have already used them for my own commercial purposes here https://www.redbubble.com/people/CHOCOLATESCORPI/shop And here https://fineartamerica.com/art/chocolatescorpi, So please ask first if you want to use any of them as we wouldn't want you getting into trouble. Thank you 😊
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The Ladies of Hive- your own crypto world girl gang full of fun and suprises, so click on the link to find out more about this brilliant community of caring, companionship and creative contests, such as this one....@ladiesofhive/ladies-of-hive-community-contest-41
(cause we're all such damn cool cats...😁)
