New to darkroom work

[mac_wt]

Yesterday I spend my first evening in the darkroom (actually our bathroom). I have been developing film for some time now, using a Jobo daylight tank, but last weekend I aquired a Meopta Opemus 4 enlarger and a lot of darkroom stuff. A trip to the photoshop completed my setup. I got some Ilford Multigrade paper and a set of filters and yesterday I tried it out.

Well, it wasn't a complete succes. I made a lot of misstakes. I forgot to set a sensible aperture on the enlarger, once I put some paper under the enlarger without switching it off, I miscalculated the time, I was clumsy putting the first photos in the baths (not completly submerging them, or scratching them) and some prints showed a lot of dust.

But I ended up with 2 or 3 prints that I was not affraid to show to my wife. Tomorrow I'm going back in. The aim is to produce a few more prints that I can also show to people who aren't directly related... 😉

I'm confident developing film (after all; just following the instructions to the letter gives reasonable results), but making prints seems a lot more like taking photos: there is not only technique, but also experience, reasoning and feeling needed.

How was your first time in a darkroom?

Wim

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I'll be trying it in April. I hope it's as good as yours was.

 

[Oliver]

How was your first time in a darkroom?

I spent 4 hours kneeling in front of the toilet.


..


Well, it was doubling as my enlarger stand 😀 This also led to my first rule of darkroom work, no fluids for 2 hours before printing.

 

[Doug]

Pretty bad! It was the Air Base photo lab after hours, and I was being shown what to do by a photo amateur friend. We developed film by grasping each end of the roll and in total darkness running it through the tray of Dektol. He dipped a finger in the Dektol first and pronounced it about the right temp. After a few minutes of this we turned on the safelight briefly to assess the image density, and either resumed dipping or quit at that point and went for the stop bath and fixer trays. I don't remember how we washed the film, but we hung it where there were film drying hangers at one end of the room. The next night we'd come back and pick up our dry film, and I recall rolling it up and cinching it to fit inside a film can. Lots and lots of scratches and dirt, of course.

We could not use the lab's paper, so I brought my own, purchased somewhere off base, a post-card size. I do recall how amazing it was to watch the image appear on the paper in the developer tray. Magic, though rather flawed technically. That was December '63 near Izmir Turkey, and it was about 3 years later and almost half a world away in Seattle that I first set up my own darkroom.

 

[plexi]

The mistakes you did is VERY common, we all do them. It sounds very much like my first printing session. Don`t be afraid to push the paper into the developer, use your fingers.
A box of nitrile gloves comes in handy.. I hate using tongs 🙂

 

[schaubild]

This link to Ilford should help. Read carefully, don't get nervous and off you go 🙂

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/applications/page.asp?n=34

 

[jcline]

Bathroom Fun

Bathroom Fun

My first darkroom experience was actually in highschool and to be honest an hour was barely long enough to develop a roll when you're fighting with 30 other kids to get into the dark darkroom, let alone get a decent print made afterwards. That was almost 10 years ago. I go back into photo about a year ago and about 3 months ago setup the darkroom for the first time in the bath room. I have to say its much nicer to be able to hang out for a couple hours and actually do something. I would say that there is not a ton of great stuff to show for it so far. 1 or 2 things I'm proud of, but its been fun, almost meditative. As always lots more to learn, and I'm looking forward to it.