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Darkroom portraits

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Rick,

I'm curious about your gray walls. I thought Ansel recommended white walls for more reflected light, except for the area around the enlarger, which should be a matte black. Have recommendations been revised, or are there just many variables which determine one's choice of color?

Sara
 
Sara,

I'm not sure what safelight Ansel used, but with my sodium vapor light I get a lot of output. In my former darkroom with 8 foot ceilings and a smaller footprint I didn't need white walls to view the print in the developer adequately, hence the roughly 18% gray walls to reduce reflections.

In my new darkroom which is 11x14 feet with 10 foot ceilings I still kept the roughly the same color walls but found that the light wasn't quite as bright as I like. I added the white patch to add a little more output. I now have just enough light to view the print in the developer easily without fogging any paper I have out.

Bottom line to answer your question about variables, yes, I'm sure there are many different opinions about wall color. For me, I just prefer the gray.
 
Thanks, Rick,

It is pretty obvious you had planned everything to work well in your space but I had to ask (out loud).

Sara
 
Hey guys, this is my lab that I made in a small room at my apartment.














 
Thats quite a large air conditioner unit Yan, must be freezing in your darkroom.

Mike
 
When I built my darkroom got some stainless racks, and put them over the sink for drying equipment, also served as storage for these wet items eg tanks, trays, tongs, etc.
 
MIke. it can get really hot in Brazil in summer and an air con like that is what you need when temperature reaches 30c, 32c degrees.
 
Hi Yan, Well it looks like you are well prepared,I just used my air conditioner for the first time this year for a short while today temp. reached 97deg. f. Lately I have been printing early in the morning on weekends and days off from work,I like that better than staying up till 1 or 2 in the morning.Nice darkroom Yan stay cool.

Mike
 
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Thanks Mike. I´m trying to work during day hours too, but is hard with all this pressure to work more and more that we have today.
 
I though this might interest some of you :

Dead Link Removed.

The site is in French, but I think the photographs are eloquent enough. This guy drives around in his mobile darkroom to teach analog photography at schools, community centers etc.
 
Aegentic,that is a large darkroom and a large truck.looks like they have every thing you would need for processing.I don't read French but I think it says 8 or 9 enlargers.That would be a way of drawing in younger people to analog photograph

Mike
 
Thought I posted these years ago, but here they are now - trying to keep it to 3 or 4 posts per year :
 
Tim Gray said:
I want a darkroom like that sooooooo bad.
Click to expand...

Tim,

I did too, so I built one into half (11'X20') of my 2 car garage (I was willing to give up the space for cars as I live in (So)California and parking outside all year isn't much of an issue). This gave me a processing sink 36" X 19.6', as well as separate washing sink all within a standard "wet side - dry side" arrangement with double door light/dust trap. Drop table and wall mount enlarger on the dry side allow routine prints up to 30"X40".
 
ROL,

Love your space... I'm doing the same exact thing right now, just scaled down a little. I am using most of my 1 car garage for my new darkroom.. 13' x 9'. Sink will be 10' long. I have to share space with the water heater, but that only takes 30" x 30" of the corner. (hot water won't take too long to warm up)

I found a 36" revolving door locally. (thanks kevin) The door makes a great babysitter for my kid... better than spongebob!

More pics to come...
 

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It's hard when you live in an apartment.
 
Really nice darkroom , lots of space well thought out and nice finish.

ROL said:
Thought I posted these years ago, but here they are now - trying to keep it to 3 or 4 posts per year :
Click to expand...
 
Just plain gorgeous. And, yes, I'm jealous too.
 
Thanks all for the complements. It's a real commitment to build a working darkroom these days. The attached (house) garage arrangement works fine for my maximium print size (30X40), but that left only 9'X20' of unfinished, garage-like space in the remainder of the garage for the presentation area. It's a bit cramped with tools, kayaks, bike racks, etc. and swinging around 36"X48" matted prints can be risky - I could use at least twice the space to feel more comfortable - but you work with what you got (or are left with, especially these days). When not mounting, the wife uses the desk space for her office, now that she works at home. FYI - The DR dryside is on the other side of the finished wall (the one with the matted print rejects) to the left of garage entry from house:


Robert - watch out for the flourescent lighting lag - I decided on temperature adjusted (low voltage) halogen incandescent cans and spots throughout the DR.
 
Robert,your construction looks about the same when I built mine,also in garage with a ten foot sink.However I did not put enough electrical outlets in,three to a side is not enough.Also put a small window air conditioner with the back side is inside the garage,wish it stuck out the outside wall of garage thus producing less heat in the garage. Of course the reg stuff Insulation,pluming,at least to water outlets, exhaust fan,going to add another exhaust fan at tray level that comes out to out side of garage. Have fun

Mike C
 
the flourescent lights are gone already.... replaced with recessed lighting. I have wired in a tray light about 3' above the sink for print preview. I have a wall switched outlet on the ceiling for safelights.

I think there are now 10 outlet boxes in the room. There is a ceiling mounted 220v junction box for a future 8x10 durst.

Other features.... vacuum attachment built into the wall that is switched on from the darkroom (vacuum is outside of darkroom in the remaining garage). air hose built into the wall connected to filtered air compressor in the garage.

I am using a 300cfm negative pressure system... sucking air through two 14x14 inch air filters. it will be easy to upgrade the fan if I decide I need more air flow. The space is also hooked into the central ac / furnace.
 
Sounds like youve got it all covered,neg. pressure how does that work?

Mike C.
 
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