Do You Currently Operate a Darkroom?

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vor 4 Minuten schrieb George Collier:

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[rogerhyam]

If we are doing show and tell this is my darkroom space. What a mess!

I do 35mm and some weird stuff like homemade silver gelatine plates and argyrotypes. I've given up on wet-plate. Only ever black and white. Colour is digital.

It is a box room with raised bed. No running water and I have to clear everything out once a year when my daughter comes home.

Recommended is to get a vertical slot processor if you don't have much room - and can find one. I make up the chemicals about once a week and they keep with the lids on. I can just pop in in the evening and make a few prints without having to get trays out and clear them up.

RC papers are washed by going through three trays of water (last slot plus two more) with a squeegee between each. FB papers are taken to the bathroom for final washing.

I could set this up in a large cupboard if needed.

 

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[graphlex]

On 9/3/2021 at 8:34 AM, Michael Hiles said:

Running water in the darkroom is not an absolute necessity – It must be available, but can work well if it in a more or less adjacent room (like a kitchen). It just means more walking.

I spent a summer as a photographer on a dig in western Turkey. Developed a lot of film in a darkroom without running water.  Not great fun but ventilation is more important. 

[bobtodrick]

On 9/3/2021 at 9:34 AM, Michael Hiles said:

Running water in the darkroom is not an absolute necessity – It must be available, but can work well if it in a more or less adjacent room (like a kitchen). It just means more walking.

Yup…worked for me for years.

Well equipped darkroom in the basement (cellar)…but no running water.

Film is processed upstairs.  When printing prints are put in a water bath than transferred upstairs at the end of a session where they are washed in a Zone VI archival washer.

Been doing that for 25 years.  Prints made 25?years ago show absolutely no deterioration so it definitely works.

[otto.f]

On 7/23/2023 at 12:38 PM, rogerhyam said:

I do 35mm and some weird stuff like homemade silver gelatine plates and argyrotypes.

If you do that kind of prints, you can hardly avoid a little mess, respect!

Edited October 15, 2023 by otto.f

[otto.f]

A few years ago I re-installed my darkroom. Around 2007 I sold my Focomat and my Beseler, but in the end I longed to return to nice FB prints. My Monochrome1  images printed with inkjet was not enough for me. And given the fact that good papers came back on the market, I bought a used Beseler again (because I do 120 and sheet film too). Recently I discovered Rollei 111 as a paper which meets its promises, being that it works and looks like Agfa Classic, which was my favorite paper. I find that it may even be a bit better in shadow details (if it’s not my film-developer combination).

[adan]

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I process my own film (90% B&W, 10% color neg) in a simple windowless powder-room (I stick my darkroom towel across the bottom of the door to plug the last light leak, while loading the film in the tank). Just enough space around the sink for the jugs, tank, timer, etc. to fit efficiently.

I do still have the bits around to print B&W chemically.

But realistically, the ability to make 16" x 20" (A2) B&W and color fiber-based egg-shell-gloss prints (Epson Exhibition Fiber) with a 17x22/43cm x 56cm inkjet printer - done in 10 minutes, flat and smooth - means I no longer use those at all.

Heck, fiber-based color prints are their own trip back into my past.

Fiber-based color paper for darkrooms disappeared around 1975 (except for dye-transfer prints, also extinct). My first year in college I made lovely fiber-based color prints in the school lab - then everything went resin-coated for quick drying (a demand from 1-hour mini-labs).