Darkroom country sayings, platitudes and homemaker's golden rules

A few days ago I spoke with a beginner about darkroom work, and his difficulties reminded me of my first days on the dark side of photography. There are some simple, commonsense tip-offs that we could share, things that are so mundane that we never mention them.

I start with some of mine:

#1: Films do not like to be quick-freezed or boiled with tap water in winter. Tap water is either too hot or too cold. If you store all your chemistry and some canisters with tap water in your darkroom, all at the same height (on the ground or on a shelf) they all have the same temperature after a day. If you dilute a developer to working strength with that water it has the same temperature immediately. This is also perfect for the Ilford washing method that I recommend.



#2: Tape a big sheet of paper to the wall as a "ship's log" and make a note when you prepare chemistry and a tally when you process films or paper. You will never have to guess how old that developer is or whether your fixer is exhausted.

&

This is even better when you write the processing times for your favourite material on a second paper and put it right beside the log. Then you don't have to search for the correct time while the developer is already in the tank.

#3: You need a pair of scissors in the darkroom. Blunt-tip scissors for children feel better in the dark.

You will find the scissors easily in the dark, provided you tether it to the table with some packthread.

#4: Every bottle needs a label. Whatever you write on the label is not daubed by liquids if you stick some clear adhesive tape on the caption.



#5: The best thermometer is just right, but you need a second one in case you drop the first one. Compare both thermometers. Probably they show slightly different results - take a note of the deviance, sooner or later you will drop one of them.



#6: Buy a very good thermometer. There are basically three types of thermometers:
- Mercury -> your viscera don't like mercury, in case you drop the thermometer your lab will be contaminated
- Digital -> the display makes every affordable digital thermometer look like a precision instrument, but most digital thermometers are NOT precise at all.
- Alcohol -> most modern lab thermometers contain alcohol

An alcohol thermometer that shows you a long, stretched scale between 15 and 30 degrees Celsius that shows 1/10 degrees Celsius is a good and affordable choice, especially if you buy more than one, see #5.

#7: If you have children, keep them out.
Sooner or later they will either:
- walk in when you are in the lab handling 3200 ASA film or
- use Multigrade as drawing paper or
- mix a yummy high-acutance cocktail while you are out.



There are some strategies to keep children out:
- Deny that there is a room behind that door.
- Suggest a possibility that even Harry Potter would not open this "Chamber of Secrets"... don't forget to mention Lord Voldemort. If they keep on asking why you spend hours in that chamber tell them it takes a while to feed so many basilisks...
- Second best solution: keep the lab door locked, put the key on your bunch of keys.
- Best solution: take your children into the lab while you develop some landscape shots. They will find it so boring that they will never come back. Then, lock the door, just to make sure.

#8: Always do things in the same way and don't change a film or a developer without a very good reason. If you keep the material, agitation, temperature and all other variables the same you gain more control of the whole process and achieve good results easily after a while.
If you change everything over and over again you will keep on believing that it's not you but the material that goofs up your photos.

I keep several notebooks-one for each camera to record shooting session. Another for chemistry, to record when a batch was mixed, any dilution instructions, etc, Lastly I keep one to record my printing sessions. Only final print stats get logged to this book. Large dry-erase board on the wall. On this I keep track of the steps used(ie; starting time, f/stop, paper grade, etc) while printing, my final accepted results are then transfered to my journal. I also keep my negs in archival sleeves that I can print through without removing them, these are kept in a three ring binder with the corresponding proof sheet. I also record printing info on back of proof sheet(all enlarger settings+time+chems)makes a good reference point for enlargments. I'm sure that I have many more bad habits to share, but you can [develope] them for yourself .
Rick

I have reduced my procedures to only one film and developer and only a couple of paper developers. After working out my procedures, I wrote them up nicely on my computer (my handwriting is illegible even to me), printed it out and put it in a three ring binder. I always look at the binder before I do anything.

juan

These are all excellent tips. I reuse medicine bottles for my day-to-day dev and fix solutions, partly because they're the right volume for home dev tanks, and partly because they have childproof caps. Whilst the caveats on mercury are sound, the risk of mercury poisoning from metallic mercury in thermometers is not that high. It's quite hard to do yourself harm with elemental mercury, the high risk comes from mercuric salts and compounds and vapours. That said, the need for caution and care is sensible, and I've used the same mercury thermometer for the last thirty-five years.

I also do the tally marks thing, though I put a strip of masking tape around the bottle and put pencil tally marks on that. I used to mess around with all sorts of developers, but now I settle on just two, D76 or Rodinal.

cmo said:

There are some simple, commonsense tip-offs that we could share, things that are so mundane that we never mention them.

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Read and follow the directions!

When I open a stock bottle of any liquid, I write the date on the bottle so I never have to wonder when I started it. I also write the date opened on boxes of paper - mostly so I can judge how long it takes me to go through them.

Don't get down or frustrated working in the darkroom.

The garbage can is my best friend when printing!

don't fix before develop
don't put camera in fixer
don't expose paper wrong side up
don't forget to adjust apeture after focusing enlarger, #1 cause of black paper
don't use focus instead of time , #2 cause of black paper
don't touch dry paper with wet fingers
don't forget to lock the door

always read and follow label instructions, and tec. doc.

Big whiteboard attached to the wall. Records fill date and usage of chemicals in my slot processors, which negatives are to be printed next, formula of the chemical being mixed, etc. etc.

Clean up ...immediatly... after you're done with any given action.

For example:
Finised fixing? Rinse the tray or tank NOW. Don't wait untill you've finished for the night.
Dried fix on bottles and trays is a sure sign of sloppy darkroom practice.

Rinse your hands ...frequently... Keep a basin full of water or a trickle of water from the faucet available at all times, especially when printing.

Hang some hand towels at convenient locations around the darkroom.
Wash them as frequently as you wash your sox.

Replace that moldy sponge! Better yet, get rid of it altogether.
A final rinse in clear water before drip/air drying is far cleaner than smearing that contaminated wad of cellulose across your processing equipment.

A simple spray head on the end of a supple tube attached to the faucet is very effective for clean-up, and uses less water too.

Reinhold

www.classicBWphoto.com

1. Keep a number of old towels strategically placed around the darkroom.

2. Keep a bowl of soapy water in the corner of the sink.

3. I have a garbage can located near the door. It seems that I consistently forget to take off my gloves before leaving. When I reach the door and turn on the lights, I have a trash can there waiting for the gloves.

4. An "efficient" set up is not always the best. When I redesigned my darkroom, I purposely moved the enlarger farther from the sink. I find I tire less when I have to walk between exposure and development, even if it is only a five or six steps.

5. Build your work surfaces to a comfortable height. I'm 6'2" tall, so I built mine 6" higher than the standard.

6. Ditto the OP on keeping water at room temperature in the darkroom.

7. Place glow-in-the-dark tape on any surface which you might bump into, like the edge of shelf or that pesky refrigerator next to the door.

8. If you put in a large print washer, say one for 20x24" prints, practice with a spare sheet to see if it is at a workable height, before you fill it with water. It may fit in your sink, but then the top of the washer will be too high to load without using a step ladder. (Trust me on this one.)

9. Cat proof your darkroom. (Again, trust me on this one.)

10. Keep a box of gloves next to the enlarger and one near the sink.

11. Foot switches are good.

12. Do not store paper under a sink.

13. I use two patterson light tight boxes. To the left of the enlarger goes a session's worth of unexposed paper. Once I expose a sheet, it goes into a box to the right of the enlarger to await development. Which takes me to my next point...

14. You can develop 2 or more prints at a time.

15. Keep a small flashlight (with a red filter over the light) next to the enlarger.

16. Write things down. You are sure you will remember, but you won't.

17. If you share your darkroom, always ask before turning on the lights.

18. Close your eyes when turning on the lights. Wait for a few seconds after they are on before opening your eyes.

That's all I can come up with for now.

Invest in nylon gloves. They're washable and are classified as microfibers.

Actually, we had another previous thread discussing similar tips btw:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Symmetrical scissors (with identical holes for fingers) are far better in the dark. When I first bought mines, I remember to have chosen the model with the eyes kept closed, and this was my conclusion. And the practice confirmed it.

Thou shalt not have the caps off pyrocat a & b at the same time.

Clean up ...immediatly... after you're done with any given action.

For example:
Finished fixing? Rinse the tray or tank NOW. Don't wait until you've finished for the night.
Dried fix on bottles and trays is a sure sign of sloppy darkroom practice.

Rinse your hands ...frequently... Keep a basin full of water or a trickle of water from the faucet available at all times, especially when printing.

Hang some hand towels at convenient locations around the darkroom.
Wash them as frequently as you wash your sox.

Replace that moldy sponge! Better yet, get rid of it altogether.
A final rinse in clear water before drip/air drying is far cleaner than smearing that contaminated wad of cellulose across your processing equipment.

A simple spray head on the end of a supple tube attached to the faucet is very effective for clean-up, and uses less water too.

Reinhold

Click to expand...

That's about what I do, I set out at least two towels to dry the hands on and wash and clean as I go. It works in the kitchen also.

Invest in nylon gloves. They're washable and are classified as microfibers.

Click to expand...

These are for dry work and not wet work like the Nitril gloves?

"Your best friend is the trash can."

"You think you're bein' creative when all your doin' is makin' a mess."

The greatest enemy of the darkroom is contamination. Keep separate bottles tongs towels beakers trays for developers vs everything else.

Own enough darkroom and camera equipment that your wife or girlfriend could not possibly tell that you spent money on something new.

cmo said:

#2: Tape a big sheet of paper to the wall as a "ship's log" and make a note when you prepare chemistry and a tally when you process films or paper. You will never have to guess how old that developer is or whether your fixer is exhausted.

&

This is even better when you write the processing times for your favourite material on a second paper and put it right beside the log. Then you don't have to search for the correct time while the developer is already in the tank.

Click to expand...

Great post!!! I just asked this question elsewhere before seeing this post so I hope you don't mind as it's relevant here, especially for us rookies.

My darkroom is 3wks old. I've been reusing my Ilfostop stop & Hypam fixer for these 3 weeks.. mixed them each into a 1lt bottle. I only work on weekends and have processed around 4 films and made about 15-20 prints. So How do I actually know that the stop & fixer has expired / exhausted / ended?? Does Ilfostop or Hypam indicate? Is there a max number you all adhere to? I noticed on 2 prints I made last night had some kind of stains on them, not in the same location either. Does that mean theyre done?

ryca said:

Great post!!! I just asked this question elsewhere before seeing this post so I hope you don't mind as it's relevant here, especially for us rookies.

My darkroom is 3wks old. I've been reusing my Ilfostop stop & Hypam fixer for these 3 weeks.. mixed them each into a 1lt bottle. I only work on weekends and have processed around 4 films and made about 15-20 prints. So How do I actually know that the stop & fixer has expired / exhausted / ended?? Does Ilfostop or Hypam indicate? Is there a max number you all adhere to? I noticed on 2 prints I made last night had some kind of stains on them, not in the same location either. Does that mean theyre done?

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Ryca, this thread is not meant as a question-and-answer thing, but I can add some extra hints. Please, ask your question about stains on your prints as a new thread in the forum.

#9: Save money on stop and flo:

- citric acid is dirt cheap, you get it in many places, and it does not smell at all. Discard after use, the sink is cleaned, too...
- Distilled water makes a great final rinse for films (1 minute is enough), no stain, no blotch, no foam, almost no costs. The cheap stuff that comes in canisters for car batteries is fine.

#10: If you don't like the smell of acetic acid and fixer, use citric acid as a stop bath and an "odorless" fixer (some are available).
For the fixer the "ship's log" (see above) is very important. Just tally how many paper sheets or films you processed. The manufacturer's datasheet will tell you how much can be processed safely.

ryca said:

So How do I actually know that the stop & fixer has expired / exhausted / ended?? Does Ilfostop or Hypam indicate? Is there a max number you all adhere to? I noticed on 2 prints I made last night had some kind of stains on them, not in the same location either. Does that mean theyre done?

Click to expand...

Ilfostop changes colour from yellow to blue when exhausted.

Fixer shows no visible change. The Hypam data sheet gives capacity for film and paper per litre of working solution. I write start date, most recently used date, and running total number of prints through the fixer in my slot processor on the whiteboard in the darkroom.

Ian

Q.G. said:

#11 Keep a couple of Aspirins, or similar pain killers, handy to battle the fume-induced post-darkroom headache.

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Even better:

#12 Ensure that you have excellent ventilation in the darkroom, so that you enjoy the darkroom, and avoid any post-darkroom headaches.

Matt

vet173 said:

Thou shalt not have the caps off pyrocat a & b at the same time.

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How true! I keep my A solution in 500 ml bottles and B solution in 1 ltr bottles, but if you mix up the caps you've just ruined a bottle of solution A.

From Fred Picker: "Different is NOT the same." Pick a good film (Kodak, Fuji or Ilford) and stick with it. Pick a good universal developer (D76 or equivalent, HC 110, maybe Rodinal) and again stick with it. Pick a good paper and perhaps 1 or two paper developers and, once again, stick with them. It will take a student a couple years (at least) to start to get a good handle on their materials. Once they have worked with those materials for a few years, then and only then should they attempt to change any of them. The film/paper/developer of the month club is no way to learn photography!

Oh yeah, and tell the student to Have Fun!