Darkroom injury (minor): anybody else hurt themself in a dark darkroom?

[Donald Qualls]

I knew I made the right decision when we stayed at my father-in-law’s house and discovered he didn’t own a can opener.

At the very least, your wife had a good chance to learn the right ways.

 

[mshchem]

Unfortunately I haven’t lost any height and I’m on the gentle slope towards exiting the eighties. After all, the world is made for short people.
I put on a little weight right after marriage from my wife’s home cooking Cantonese meals but remained more or less the same afterwards. I knew I made the right decision when we stayed at my father-in-law’s house and discovered he didn’t own a can opener.

 

[BMbikerider]

Only in the credit card department when I bought another enlarger that I didn't really need.

 

[Tim Stapp]

There is help in the future. As one becomes older, there is a tendency to loose a bit of height.

Finally an advantage for being height challenged!

I'm not height challenged at 5'6". I'm normal height. If I was any bigger, my clothes wouldn't fit.

I do however joke that as I age, I'm getting taller. Things on the floor are a lot further away than they used to be.

FWIW, my wife is 5'-12" tall. She won't admit to being 6'. A guy in the grocery store laughed out loud when I asked her to come get something off the top shelf for me .

 

[MattKing]

FWIW, my wife is 5'-12" tall. She won't admit to being 6'. A guy in the grocery store laughed out loud when I asked her to come get something off the top shelf for me .

And how did that guy respond when your wife asked you to grab the items that are hardest to reach on the bottom shelf because they are priced most competitively?

 

[Tim Stapp]

And how did that guy respond when your wife asked you to grab the items that are hardest to reach on the bottom shelf because they are priced most competitively?

All the lower shelves were emptied, hence my cry for help! Cat food aisle just last week. She got two down for him. He couldn't reach after she got what we needed (three cats...double the weight of cat food for the weight of cat litter). BTW: I'm 5'6". I'll leave the jokes to your imagination. But: they start with "when we're toe to toe...."

 

[VinceInMT]

Keeping this off-topic foray about the greatening of girth photographically-related, I look at lots of vintage photos and that is one striking difference between then and now. The people in the photos are slimmer. I think this started around the middle of the 20th century and I’d suggest that it has something to do with, among other things, the advent of television.

 

[GregY]

Does throwing your back out moving a 310 lb Ademco drymount press count?

 

[Pieter12]

Does throwing your back out moving a 310 lb Ademco drymount press count? View attachment 330219

Not 310 lbs, but see my post #12.

 

[GregY]

Not 310 lbs, but see my post #12.

Dangerous goods Pieter!

 

[mshchem]

Keeping this off-topic foray about the greatening of girth photographically-related, I look at lots of vintage photos and that is one striking difference between then and now. The people in the photos are slimmer. I think this started around the middle of the 20th century and I’d suggest that it has something to do with, among other things, the advent of television.

I have my Dad's dress uniform from his stint in the US Navy in WWII, My nephew's 13 year old daughter is the only person I can think of with a similar waistline . She's a beautiful skinny kid.

 

[eli griggs]

I don't agree for Leica users, as we waste at least about 4" of film when loading the camera.

I'll point out again, to others here, reusing 35mm spools with a short cut tail to tape fresh film on to, and processed clear tounges to avoid wasting exposures on the fresh film, your bulk loading will give you extra rolls of exposures due to the unexposed frames being saved, especially for the Leica folks.

Doing the same thing to "36 frame" rolls will allow you to make up short rolls for shooting when you do no want to process unexposed film, rather than leaving it in the camera forever because you just do no take that many colour or infrared shots.

Cheers to all,
Eli

 

[guangong]

Keeping this off-topic foray about the greatening of girth photographically-related, I look at lots of vintage photos and that is one striking difference between then and now. The people in the photos are slimmer. I think this started around the middle of the 20th century and I’d suggest that it has something to do with, among other things, the advent of television.

Not television. The town where I have lived for many has recently become a town of young people. We no longer have a butcher or fish market. They went out of business because the younger office workers and professionals don’t cook. They exist on take out and pizza. Almost all of The so-called restaurants serve prepackaged microwaved stuff. A steady diet of pizza, tacos, burgers and potato chips adds on the pounds. The fattest girl in my high school was smaller than the average high school girl today. Along with heightism, the New York Times is against thinism, and is now promoting being plump. The NYT does not mention the side effects of being plump: becoming diabetic, high blood pressure, etc.

 

[eli griggs]

Back to topic, I've had a couple of close calls while drinking, coffee, sodas, iced tea in darkrooms as I focus down on the process to the exclusion of everything else.

I've always caught myself before actually taking a sip of chemistry, but it still might happen that I do no, one day

 

[Donald Qualls]

I've had a couple of close calls while drinking, coffee, sodas, iced tea in darkrooms

I learned a hard and fast rule in summer camp chemistry about 1970: no food or drink where there are chemicals in use. Period.

If I get thirsty (especially when printing) I make sure all the sensitive materials are protected, turn on the light, open the door, and go get something -- and finish it before closing the door again.

 

[GregY]

I often do long sessions in the darkroom....so i do drink in the darkroom. If i'm processing film...the lights are on. If i'm printing...chemicals are in the trays.... in any case the cup (different from a beaker) is on the counter behind me (when printing), right next to the cd player. I don't see much likelihood of mixing things up.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Once, I slipped on the stairs, (build up of mold from all the winter rain) heading down to my darkroom, and bruised my ribs. Once, when I entered the darkroom with a cup of tea, I caught my toe on the door's threshold, and went flying head first into the darkness, spilling tea everywhere. As I stood up, I noticed that my finger was holding nothing but the cup's handle. To this day, I haven't been able to locate the teabag...

 

[VinceInMT]

OK, this wasn’t in the darkroom but it’s where I was eventually headed. I have a project where I am going to run all the streets of my city (about 500 miles of them) and I document each of the runs by posting on a blog with maps, photos, etc. Sometimes I shoot photos with my phone, other times with my Minolta 16P. The week before last I went out to log a short one, 3.5 miles, and took my dog with me. He zigged in front of me and stopped causing me to tumble forward. I landed on my left thigh, right on the pocket where the 16P was, driving into the muscle. I couldn’t get up and a nice guy in a truck pulled over and helped, offering me a ride home. I was only 3 block away and thought I could “walk it off” so I hobbled on home. I have a massive bruise and had to take a week off from running.

Here’s the good news: No damage to the Minolta 16P. That is one tough camera.

 

[Chuck1]

ouch thanks all for sharing, I remember seeing people walking into each other in the maze entrance to a gang darkroom, and I've had my bell rung so many times I can only recall the really serious ones, I wear a baseball cap for safety (the brim is a feeler) and to try to eliminate stray hairs on film and paper
reusing commercial 35mm cannisters and a church key for bulk loading is asking to at least slice a finger ,the kodak reusable ones or the older ilford ones have nice rounded edges,in total darkness I try to remain seated, and when color printing i was fortunate enough to have an individual darkroom with a 4x5 enlarger that was small, so I could feel my way around (not bad at all for a state state school then)
use tongs, wear gloves, I have never used c-41 or ra-4 "loose" I had color film developed at the local one hour and the ra-4 was an automated unit, when I worked at color one hour labs I could've sworn the material safety data sheets clearly stated to wear a resiprator, but the stench was always there even though it was a closed sytem.
Inhaling powder chemistry is bad (fixer is the worst?-barring things that would be used to reduce negatives)
drinks stay in the kitchen, I am accident prone and will not be cutting anything it the dark just handling razor blades in a well lit room is plenty dangerous
stay safe(seems appropriate)

 

[mshchem]

I have a little vacuum bottle I keep coffee In, no trouble.

 

[cliveh]

I once had a silver nitrate burn on my arm. It's so splishy splashly that stuff, that you have to be incredibly careful with it.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Most of the damage inflicted on me in the darkroom occurs in the wallet and credit card.

 

[eli griggs]

I'm sure we're no hearing about all the paper guillotine accidents that must have occured, while cutting papers, including too many sheets at a single throw.

 

[rcphoto]

Last injury I had from working in the darkroom was a hangover.

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

Last injury I had from working in the darkroom was a hangover.

A wee dram of Scotch added to the radio playing a little jazz or classical music whilst fawning over that negative you have been hoping for is a sure fire way to awake to a hangover!
Oddly enough I think Ansel Adams had the same issue with wine?

Live long and develop.