Darkroom Portraits (Part 2)

[Mark_S]

Splitting the large portraits thread (also, keep in mind we have a gallery category for this as well: (there was a url link here which no longer exists) ).


Until now I have built five darkrooms. But there are still things to improve. And everytime I study other peoples darkrooms, I learn one or two nice tricks.

I recently set up another darkroom. We are renting a house which had a room built on the back of the garage - about 19'x8' which I used for the darkroom. It had windows, but no water, so I covered the windows with plywood, and brought water in through the windows, and pump waste water back out through the window.

Starting on the dry side - I have a row of cabinets to keep stuff in - next to that is a home made cabinet which I store chemicals in.



On the other side of the door, there is a table which holds my dry mount press, with drying screens below, and then the enlarger table:



The enlarger is a Ilford MG600 on a Beseler 45MX Chassis - storage for easels and paper safes below:



On the wet side, I have two 6' sinks, it would be better if the sinks were just a bit wider. 16x20 and 20x24 are doable, but require juggling. The sinks are plumbed with hot, cold and tempered water.
A wire rack above the sink allows me to put things up there to dry, and they drip into the sink. There is also a strip of clothespins to hold film to dry over the sink.



I built a cabinet which holds my Jobo Processor, and allows it to drain into the sink next to it.



Safelight comes from a pair of Agfa low pressure sodium vapor lights.

I've been pretty happy with the darkroom - good place to retreat from the world!

 

[grahamp]

Nice approach with the Jobo, though it would not work in my more limited space.

 

[Bateleur]

Here's a picture of my very modest darkroom after building new benches for enlargers and processing trays. <snip...>
View attachment 69367

A cosy space all the same, Thomas and a lovely V35 to warm the insides the hot chocolate does not reach

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Thomas, is your darkroom walled off from the rest of the basement at all? When we lived in Minnie, I enclosed my wife's basement exercise area with sheet plastic hung from the rafters, and used one of those oil-filled heaters ParkerSmith mentions. It helped a lot.

That's not a bad idea. I don't know if I have enough space to do that, but I'll certainly consider it.

The idea is to make a functional space, and the trouble is what's behind me - the laundry area. There's no practical way of sectioning that off, but I will sure try. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[pbromaghin]

That's not a bad idea. I don't know if I have enough space to do that, but I'll certainly consider it.

The idea is to make a functional space, and the trouble is what's behind me - the laundry area. There's no practical way of sectioning that off, but I will sure try. Thanks for the suggestion!

To mount the plastic, I used a staple gun and put it through long, thin strips of plastic ribbon (maybe 3/4" x 1/8" and 8ft long). Staple the plastic sheets to the rafters between the darkroom and laundry areas. When you're done in the darkroom, you can roll it up to the ceiling, using short lengths of clothesline to keep it up till next time. Fleet Farm has everything needed for this.

 

[Darkroom317]

Updated photo of my darkroom

 

[ataim]

Ataim - I haven't started building my darkroom yet, but was given a sink very similar to yours. Is it anchored to the wall, with just the 2 legs and a 2x4 along the front?

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Yes it has a 2x4 screwed to the studs on the back side and the top of the sink is screwed to the 2x4. A 1X6 runs along the entire front lip, with 2x2 post on each end with one cross brace.

 

[Hilo]

The two tables for the Focomat 2C

My darkroom is large, and also I let others use it - sometimes 2 - 3 people at the same time. On the pictures you see a part only.

It has a rather low ceiling and my 2C has stood on a low table, so I can do 50X60cm (20X24) prints, by raising the enlarger (almost touching the ceiling). Works fine, except with the smaller prints I was also always on my knees . . . Until last week when lightning struck and I placed the 2nd table over the 1st lower table. It works beautifully, the grain in the corners is sharp and to place an easel on that large flat surface of the table is very nice . . .

 

[Chris Lange]

In use:

[video=vimeo;74896975]https://vimeo.com/74896975[/video]

 

[ParkerSmithPhoto]

Nice job, Chris! Makes me want to hit the darkroom tonight.

 

[jpreston]

Here's my humble beginning:

 

[fotch]

Here's my humble beginning:

View attachment 74599

Hey, nice set up and a good start.

 

[Saturnine_Zero]

I've really loved going through this thread. It's really interesting to see people's setups, although I must say I'm extremely jealous of the space people have!

I finally remembered to take some photos of my setup, not as sophisticated as some and every square inch of space is taken up so I can barely move (It will force me to not buy a Jobo proce$$or for colour ). But it works and I'm really happy that I'm finally up and running after a year of procrastination.

 

[David Brown]

I added a new cabinet and flat file to the darkroom. The whole process is documented in my old construction blog: http://newdr.blogspot.com/2013/10/update-october-2013-new-cabinet-and.html

 

[mesantacruz]

^ what a beautiful darkroom. You'd probably faint at the sight of mine...
it's in the wash/laundry room, separated only by the black roofing paper. The great mystery is the lack of dust on my negatives/prints.

 

[pdeeh]

It is fairly small - 100 square feet

hehe this just prompted me to go and measure the space i build my darkroom in when i want to print: the floor space in which to fit enlarger plus paper, negatives, and whatnots various, including me, comes to 17 square feet; but I do have the luxury of a shelf of 3½ square feet to put my trays on ...

it's a bit like Saturnine_Zero's setup in fact

 

[David Brown]

First darkroom not in parent's house bathroom

I was going through old negatives recently and found these that I didn't know I had. It was in a rent house I lived in when first out of college (mid 1970s), and the owner/landlord was an amateur photographer. He had built this room on the back of his laundry room, but it was a dry darkroom. However, the common wall it shared with the laundry was the wall with the plumbing, so (with the landlord's permission) it wasn't too hard to have a brother-in-law come over and put a sink in the darkroom. Hot and cold running water - what more can you ask? The owner had also painted the whole thing flat black: walls, floor, ceiling! I left the area behind the enlargers black, but painted the walls and the ceiling on the wet side white. Took several coats as I recall. I also put in an AC unit and had a little heater. There was no insulation!

That's a Lucky enlarger (they're really not bad) and a Chromega B that I bought to "get into" color. I was doing prints from color negs and slides in Chromega drums, but color just never took, ya know?

It was 4x6 feet and I thought I had died and gone to darkroom heaven! (My current darkroom is 12x18)

 

[Black Dog]

4 sheets to the wind

^ what a beautiful darkroom. You'd probably faint at the sight of mine...
it's in the wash/laundry room, separated only by the black roofing paper. The great mystery is the lack of dust on my negatives/prints.

Damp's a wonderful thing sometimes!

 

[langedp]

Since I posted in the original darkroom portrait thread, I've moved and built a new darkroom. I posted these over on LFF so I thought I'd post some updates here as well...

The first series of pics shows the wet side with 16' of sink that I built and lined with PVC. I made these for the previous darkroom and re-installed them in the current one. They've held up pretty well over the years. I keep the Jobo processor at one end.




I also have a Kreonite 30" processor for RA-4 that I got for free. I only fire it up when I want to run 30"x40" RA-4 prints. 20x24 and smaller get run through the Jobo.



The dry side is in an adjacent room connected by an open doorway. I have four LPL enlargers wall mounted which frees up lots of counter space plus makes a much more rigid mount. Two are set up with 4x5 mixing boxes one for color and one for B&W. The other two are set up with medium format mixing chambers one for color and one for B&W.



For my 8x10 format I have a Durst 2501 horizontal enlarger with a 4'x4' easel that is wall mounted. I use magnets to position the paper. What a great machine.



Since most color paper comes in roll form now, I have a wall mounted paper dispenser that comes in very handy.



This darkroom has worked out pretty well and I would only change a few things if I were to do it again.

 

[youngrichard]

Blimey! I'm gobsmacked. Yer coud nock me darn wiv a fevver.
I salute you. Never seen anything like it
youngrichard

 

[KennyMark]

Well played! Lots to love in that room. Tell me about your paper dispenser.
where are you in Michigan?

 

[langedp]

Well played! Lots to love in that room. Tell me about your paper dispenser.
where are you in Michigan?

I'm just South of you in St. Joseph. What would you like to know about the dispenser? It's a 52" Rollma AD 52VPL.

 

[David Brown]

I have two enlargers. I have more than one enlarger timer, but I really like the StopClock, so I built the switch in the "before" picture so that I could control either of them with the StopClock without unplugging and replugging. Then, the power strip came into play so that I could shut off power to everything with one switch. (Both enlargers, all safelights, and timer) All this was plugged into the wall (mains) through a surge protector. Well, it was messy, so I got a wild hair and built this switching unit. The surge protector is internal, and there is a main switch to shut everything off. I still have both enlargers set up with the one timer.

 

[pdeeh]

Imagine a sort of "inverse TARDIS" ... but buying a stainless steel "Ikea" kitchen trolley has made it possible to set up in less than ½ an hour, and added about 6ft2 to my workspace
Dead Link Removed
I haven't got a wide enough angle of view lens (except a pinhole) to get in the bathroom and show what it looks like from the inside (when standing at the enlarger, I can almost lean back to rest on the on the wall behind me)

 

[Neal]

Nicely done. The key to getting use of a temporary darkroom is to make it quick and easy to set up and take down.

Neal Wydra