Why did darkroom/wet printing die?

Nokton 50mm f/1.1 @ 2.8, Leica M2, TriX, Focomat IIc, Ilford MGIV fb.

Erik.

3875772742_a4fd1e8778_o.jpg
 
I'm lucky in that I live maybe a mile from the local university, which happens to have a couple dark rooms (one for film/mixing chemicals, one for prints) with one of those big print washing machines, and a film dryer, and a bunch of besseler and omega enlargers.

The really lucky part is that it is never locked, due to the shape of the building and the layout they cannot lock the build due to fire hazards, so the dark room is accessible 24/7. Whenever I print I drive over at around 3 am and print for a few hours, then depending on how long I was there, head to the bakery, or head to work/sleep.

I need to find some negatives worth printing, I've got at least 90 sheets of kentmere 8x10 fibre paper, some old kodak fibre paper, and some 11x14 fibre just going to waste. I wonder if Ishould throw it in the freezer.
 
This weekend I did my first colour prints, at the same time I gave my brother a Darkroom 101 in black and white when we developed and printed his first 35mm film from a pinhole camera. He was having a whale of a time and really enjoyed himself.

As for me and colour, having the whole bathroom pitch black, I was amazed at how well I managed to cope with finding where everthing was by touch. Anyway, when I turned on the light for the test strip, WOW! It was a revelation to see that with some chemicals and some handiwork, I had made a colour print. I think my brother was a bit weirded out at how wide eyed I looked at 2am in the morning by this revelation.

I did the full print and it looks great! I'm going to do more of it this weekend. I am so so pleased!

Will post a scan here when I can (I don't have a flatbed scanner myself...)

Vicky
 
Lilserenity said:
This weekend I did my first colour prints, at the same time I gave my brother a Darkroom 101 in black and white when we developed and printed his first 35mm film from a pinhole camera. He was having a whale of a time and really enjoyed himself.

As for me and colour, having the whole bathroom pitch black, I was amazed at how well I managed to cope with finding where everthing was by touch. Anyway, when I turned on the light for the test strip, WOW! It was a revelation to see that with some chemicals and some handiwork, I had made a colour print. I think my brother was a bit weirded out at how wide eyed I looked at 2am in the morning by this revelation.
Click to expand...
How did the Big Bopper put it? "There's nothing in the world like a big-eyed girl...?" :)

That sounds like great fun. You'll both remember this for a while, I'd imagine. Looking forward to a look at the results.



- Barrett
 
amateriat said:
How did the Big Bopper put it? "There's nothing in the world like a big-eyed girl...?" :)
Click to expand...

Hehe, and I'd like to add that no drugs (apart from the waft of fixer) were involved in my rather cartoonish eyes at the time!

amateriat said:
That sounds like great fun. You'll both remember this for a while, I'd imagine. Looking forward to a look at the results.
Click to expand...

It was truly great, maybe all the more so because apart from the enlarger light, I didn't actually see anything including taking the paper out (obviously) to pulling it out of the Blix tray, it was as if by magic I had found some special paper, done some funky things in my gloves and hey presto as if by magic, I had a colour photograph in my hands, almost from nothing. (apart from light and some chemicals that bore resemblance to gunky cough mixture...)

I'm still impressed by this and this is hardly 'cutting edge' technology and even as a web developer (so I'm not exactly your model Luddite) this seemed so much more profoundly amazing than any scanner/camera/printer combo; or at least I think so!

Also the colour balance was pretty much bang on for the box suggestions, might have subtracted 5Y but that was it.

Vicky
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom