Blueprints

Back in college I worked for a few years making bluelines for a couple of local companies. It was a repetitive job, without a lot of intellectual challenge.

I still think of it fondly though because it was very social work. It was easy to carry on a conversation while doing something as mindless as running the diazo machine. Slide the original, wait; slide another on in, lather, rinse, repeat. We played music a little too loud and made a lot of bad jokes trying to keep going until the second shift was over.

I ran across some folks who are using the blueprint process as alternative photo process. I tried this a few times but never really got anything that looked the way I hoped it would. These folks have turned out some pretty good looking work I think.

Makes me homesick for the smell of ammonia.