Generations of Lessons
Sam Minkler poses for a portrait on Tuesday, March 7, 2023.
It is 9 a.m. on a Tuesday and Sam Minkler greets me with the same excitement he does every morning, “Hey! Buddy! How are you?”
We are in Northern Arizona University’s slightly outdated and dirty film wet lab. Minkler is here to teach the black-and-white film processing and printing course, and I am here as his teacher’s assistant.
As I mix and pour chemicals into their trays in the darkroom, Minkler greets every one of his students the same way he does me as they walk into the room one by one.
This is who Sam Minkler is. His love and passion for all things photography is infectious, to the point that I notice it sometimes catch people off guard as they expect an easy morning, strolling in with a coffee mug in one hand, rolls of undeveloped 35mm film in the other, only to be met by a loud, “Hello, let’s get to work!”
When Minkler was young, he attended the Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding School on the Navajo reservation. There he remembered seeing his peers who could draw the things they saw.
“They could draw horses, landscapes, clouds,” Minkler said. “But when I tried it, it frustrated me. It really bothered me that I couldn’t draw.”
Minkler’s history with cameras goes far back into his childhood. He mentioned to me that he has memories of his mom using a Kodak Brownie camera when he was young. The Brownie was the first of its kind as it allowed the average person to make easy snapshots to document their life. However, it would be a few more years until Minkler picked up a camera himself and began taking pictures.
The Northern Arizona Darkroom is stocked with 18 enlargers for students to print their own film, Monday, March 20, 2023.
“When I was younger, I went on a trip to New York to raise money for church,” Minkler said. “It was kind of like a dog and pony show for some missionaries to raise their money. They kind of used me to get offerings, you know to have a real Indian kid. We stopped and stayed at a farm in Pennsylvania, and they gave me a camera to take pictures.”
Minkler impressed many people who saw his photos from that day on. He said no one he showed his images to from that trip believed he was the one who took them. They responded to him with, “Where did you buy these?”
“Ever since then, I’ve always tried to make photographs where people would say, ‘you didn’t do this,’” Minkler said.
Minkler was not trained in photography through any formal matter. Instead, his deep knowledge of nearly all aspects of the various photographic processes is due to self-discovery through trial and error. This learning method is exactly how Minkler continues to teach his own classes today.
Jack McMillan is a former student of Minkler’s who graduated in 2022 with a photography degree. McMillan has taken several of Minkler’s classes, including both of his analog photo courses, black-and-white film and experimental photography.
“He doesn’t do the traditional tests where you sit down and bubble things in. It’s more of a hands-on test with Sam,” McMillan said.
McMillan recalled a day in his darkroom printing class when Minkler made the students print one of his own negatives that he knew could be printed well with the right technique. McMillan was also able to recognize throughout his years of working with Minkler that he gives all his students freedom to work in ways that make sense to them. When they need help or critiques, he is right there to add input. Because of this, Minkler can let his students combine his pointers with however it makes sense in their minds. He never needs their work to be done the textbook way because he has no textbook.
McMillan mentioned that Minkler suggested methods of taking photos that would never be found in a technical photography handbook. The techniques he proposes to his students sometimes are met with skepticism, but as McMillan put it, “Sam has been around doing photography for way too long…It doesn’t matter where he learned what he knows, it’s that he is sharing it with following generations so that the knowledge isn’t lost.”
The mixture for creating a cyanotype is written on a whiteboard outside the Northern Arizona University darkroom for students to refer to while mixing their chemicals, Monday, March 20, 2023.
McMillan also shared his great appreciation for being taught by someone with such a dense knowledge of photography.
With many schools cutting their film photography courses, these lessons are being lost.
In an interview, Minkler brought up the rise of film popularity, especially over the last five years. Minkler taught at NAU when film was all there was, and students were able to work with every form of film, be it color printing or large format 4x5 sheet film. These are things the school no longer offers after film nearly became extinct over a decade ago. Yet, Minkler has seen the school bring back the darkroom printing class because of the recent increased interest, and he is hopeful that the school may even add back some of its other film courses it once offered because there are too many students who leave his beginning level black-and-white darkroom class wanting more.
Jacob Handley took Minkler’s black-and-white darkroom class in 2022 and discovered a passion for the medium. They now are working on an independent study through Northern Arizona University to learn color film developing and printing, which uses completely different processes and enlargers than traditional black-and-white.
“It’s nice to be excited about what you’re doing, and the fact that everyone is getting back into [film]… it is worth the hype,” Handley said. “I understand why everyone is getting back into it.”
The red safe light illuminates the developing sink inside the Northern Arizona University Darkroom, Monday, April 3, 2023.
Both Handley and Minkler understand what makes film so special. In an interview, Handley pointed out how he was drawn to the medium because of two main reasons. First, film slows him down as he needs to be very specific with his vision. Second, he feels a much deeper connection to his photos because he has worked with them through each of the various stages necessary, often spending several days working from taking the image to producing a final print.
“You can shoot and shoot and it’s so easy with [digital],” Minkler said. “You just get on a computer and printer and move through everything so easily. But with film it really tests how you create some higher order of thinking with your photography.”
Minkler has worked for over two decades teaching photography and his passion for it shows no end in sight. He is planning for future semesters teaching his black-and-white film course which currently has the highest demand he has seen in recent years.