35mm B+W Slides-Photo Assignment: When My Father Died

A moving look at photo assignment when my father died, where 35mm black-and-white slides helped turn grief, memory, and mourning into lasting images

Death has a way of slapping you in the face, especially when it's your father's death, which happened at a time when his guidance was deeply needed by me, his only son.

It was a 4-year battle and he put up a courageous fight, but his cancer progressed and it took him from me when he was only 54.

I was only  20 years old and was floundering as a student in chemical engineering. Soon after dad's demise I enrolled in a photography class that involved shooting and processing 35mm black and white slide film. This was a great diversion for me, giving me a break from the dreadful required courses in my major.

As it turned out, the photography course turned out to be therapeutic for me and mom as we dealt with dad's passing. I started by taking photos of my mom, now sadly labeled as a widow. The image below is of my grieving mother with a cloud of cigarette smoke dancing in the sunlight.

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The strong backlighting isolated her profile and the smoke created a powerful contrast. The black and white transparency gave this a vintage feel that enhance the nostalgic and melancholic mood of my mother.

Before I transferred to photography school at RIT and before took a class called  Introduction To Nature Photography, I took a class using lack and white slide film at the University of Delaware.

A look back at a few rolls of slide film shot during the darkest days of my life. These 35mm black and white slides aren't just images. They are silver-halide memories frozen in a moment of profound transition of me becoming the "man of the family."

Explore  how the stark contrast of monochrome film helped me navigate the blurred edges of loss and find a strange, silver-lined peace in the shadows. My father died too young. He was only 54.

By stripping away the distraction of color, the grain of the film exposes the raw architecture of mourning, the light through an empty window, the textures present in the environment, and the heavy silence that 35mm "positive" film can truly develop.

This article revisits a photo assignment that became a lifeline. These 35mm slides capture the interplay of deep blacks and brilliant highlights, serving as a visual metaphor for the duality of life and death. It’s a study of how the mechanical act of focusing a lens can sometimes be the only way to process a world that has gone completely out of focus.

Closing Thoughts

In 1982, I carried my camera as a shield and a witness. This retrospective examines a series of black and white slides taken of his wife, my mother, in the wake of my father’s passing.

Little did I know back then what an emotional impact those 35mm black and white slide would have on me now, forty five years later.  These slides represent more than just a grade in a photography course. They represent the permanent memory of a life now gone. 

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