Darkroom portraits

Bob Carnie said:

Hi Grant

You should get together with the rest of your graduating students and give your photography teacher a gift, that darkroom looks exactly like the one I worked in at Fanshawe College in 1973, Wow I am really happy to see this one as all we here is doom and gloom regarding the teaching of analog photography and the pictures of that darkroom are blast from the past for me. Your teachers seem to know what they are doing, and you, Parsons School of Design.
I have heard that my darkrooms at the college are dismanteled and have been replaced by computers and inkjet machines *very sad*

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We do have the best darkroom in the district. And most of that comes from the insistance of my teacher. Sure we are starting to integrate digital into everything, but he strongly feels that analog is a must for any photo student. In fact they don't even introduce you to digital until level 3, and with that they still shoot color slides and scan those. This is the first year that we are (actually only me) doing color work at the school though, which is very cool.
-Grant

My Darkroom

This is my darkroom as it currently exists. I want to completely redo the wet side to include a larger sink and a permanent wet-print viewing area.

The cabinet the enlarger sits on was built for this room and the six top drawers (four to the left and two to the right of the enlarger) are all light safes that will accommodate up to 16X20 inch paper.

To the right of the sink is a home-built 20X24 print washer.

I'm on my fifth darkroom. This time I had to build around the Omega-F. Well worth the extra effort.

Once more into the breach

Well...we just moved into a new house and I'll be building a permanent darkroom...I'll post progress when I get started in a couple of months.

Actually, I'll post the rough plans now. We're going to build a 12' x 16' shed and it will be mine all mine! I've got the layout designed in my head but not on paper, and am looking forward to getting to work. The challenge in our country is the winter weather...so the insulation, heating, water supply, and sewer are taking a bit of thought. I use a silver recovery chamber, so my understanding is that there is no questionable effluent left. Depending on the difficulty tapping into our sewer line, I may end up with a separate graywater sump instead of making the sewer connection. But all in good time. For now, I need to get the order in so the materials will arrive before summer's over. Because one thing is for sure...I don't want to be building it in winter.

Troy

That sounds great, Troy. The design and construction of it should be a hobby in itself for a while but just think how nice it will be to have your own custom, dedicated darkroom when it is finished.

Troy Hamon said:

The challenge in our country is the winter weather... . Because one thing is for sure...I don't want to be building it in winter.

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Troy, my hat's off to you. I complain about temperature fluctuations here in Vermont, but Alaska?? You da man!

took long enough but here are a few digital attachments that Les McLean did today of my darkroom space. It is not normally this neat.


lee\c

Lee, wow. Now I know it's true. Everything IS bigger in Texas.

Oh gee, Lee, is that Les's hat hanging on the D2?

Lee: How many enlarger's can one person use?! Do I count FIVE?!

Or do you have a mad collecting obsession with them...or maybe an enlarger rental service??? I had to find enough room to squeeze my one little Beseler 23C into...you darn near got a parking garage for enlargers....LOL

Unfortunately, I do have a mad obsession with them: I have SIX enlargers; two Durst L184 with condenser heads, two Durst L138s, one ZBE Sentinel, one Leitz Focomat IIC. My darkroom is 10x10x8 and I do not have the room for all of them. And guess what? I am looking to add a Durst L1840 and a Focomat V35 some day! And that means knocking down a wall and expanding the darkroom.

I'll put up some pictures some day when I get myself a digital camera.

Argentic
I’m on my sixth darkroom in a significantly downsized house/condo, so I know of what you speak. A suggestion: How about some “fold-down” plasic drying screens on what appears to be a vacant wall?

claytume
"The first thing that strikes me about all the darkrooms pictured so far is the tidyness of them, ..."
Yeah, I noticed that! I've been saying I'll clean the darn thing up for months.

"rimshot" = When the drummer strikes the rim of a drum with a drumstick, producing a loud, abrupt sound.

Monophoto said:

George -

the idea of making the darkroom wals red so that the light reflected off them becomes "safe" makes sense.

But to me it's even more sensible to make the source of the light safe (ie, use safelights), and then make the walls white so that they provide maximum reflections of that safe light.

Louie

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Likewise.

Here's an idea that that I find handy: A red LED penlight.

The problem is not the safe light but any stray light from the enlarger. If you build a cubical around your enlarger than you can paint the rest of the room white.

Paul

My 1st darkroom

The 1st one I built... I've since helped a bunch more The next one will be bigger if all goes well. You can never have too much space! Notice the BBQ... goes great with beer Umm, sorry 'bout the in-dark photos, I've some white-light ones and ones with the color darkroom somewhere on this disorganized hard-drive o' mine.

Well...things are happening. I have placed an order for a 12'x20' shed package to be delivered by barge to the dock down the road, and then trucked to our property. It should arrive in August. We elected to get a longer shed (the standard one is 12'x16') because my wife wanted me to have room to set up for studio shots. I take photographs for artists of their artwork, and she didn't want me to need to rearrange the entire living room every time...and she also wanted me to be more ready to take photos of the kids. So the shed will do double duty as a darkroom/studio.

I was trying to evaluate my options for heating the place and finally decided with the air flow that will be happening as a result of the ventilation system to go with a non-vented propane heat system. The heater is here already, though it produces light itself (infrared) so I will need to turn it totally off when I am rolling film onto spools. I may also seek to shield it with black-out baffles and try some test rolls to see whether it exposes them any. I considered electrical (very expensive heat) and fuel oil (need to set up fuel containment for the tank) and went for propane because the non-vented heaters are very efficient while the propane is not a long-term fuel clean-up risk. The non-vented heaters produce carbon monoxide inside the building, but the emission of CO has been reduced greatly, and is less than 50% of the level that would be deemed inappropriate for indoor heat. Coupled with a CO detector in the darkroom and the ventilation, I'm hoping it is a reasonable option.

I've got an electrician working on an estimate for me, as that's one thing I do not want to do myself. That leaves only plumbing. Having thought about this a lot, I believe I'm going to put in a huge 200 gal. cistern instead of running water. The cistern can be filled when I am prepared to start work in a day or two, and will get me through a couple of weeks work with my current practices. I do not use cold water, only room temperature, so I don't need any colder options. I use hot water to mix chemicals, so I am taking our spare microwave oven out to create hot water when I want it. This may seem a bit odd, and I've wrestled with it quite a bit. But the thought of trying to drill into my house and run a water line from the house all the way to the darkroom in an environment where even 8 feet will not ensure that it is below the freezing layer is a bit daunting. I would need to heat the water line and ensure that the grade from the darkroom to the house is such that I could drain the line easily. With the larger darkroom, I have plenty of space for the large 200 gal. tank and can't really see a reason that it will not work rather well. I still have the challenge of getting it filled in super cold weather occasionally, but that is a short-term issue rather than a chronic one. Our winters are highly variable and we usually get some days above freezing every month, so I'm hopeful that this is a reasonable option.

Now, I need to get the area leveled off and ready so I don't have any holdups when the stuff gets here!

Reading this thread reminded me that I had not posted a link to mine, so here is the pathway to Dead Link Removed It is still not finished as I always seem to be too busy developing or printing.

Dave, I love your darkroom! Very nice. And it is really nice to see a construction project that's (pretty much) done, when I'm just starting on one. I hope I can get mine together by this time next year...

Troy Hamon said:

Dave, I love your darkroom! Very nice. And it is really nice to see a construction project that's (pretty much) done, when I'm just starting on one. I hope I can get mine together by this time next year...

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Thanks Troy, enjoy the construction experience and keep us posted on progress. My advice (not that you need it) is to try and finish the project before you use it. I was interested in your proposal to use gas heating, will this source give you condensation problems, or demand a high ventilation rate?

Dave Miller said:

Reading this thread reminded me that I had not posted a link to mine, so here is the pathway to Dead Link Removed It is still not finished as I always seem to be too busy developing or printing.

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Wonderful walk-through of the project, Dave. Is the plumbing, electrical and sewage not hooked up upstream yet, or is that part skipped over in the pictures?

Liked this so much, I added it to my own apug bookmarks (Dead Link Removed) so I can get to it as I build mine.

very inspiring.

-KwM-

Praise indeed Kevin.
All services are connected, but there is nothing much to see as the drainpipe is behind the cupboard. The last picture shows the water supply to the sink. I do not have a waterheater to keep the electrical load down, but the coldwater is tempered to room temperature as it is routed through 40 feet of 3/4 copper tube installed in the return air duct under the work bench before going into a 5 gallon break tank. By the time it gets to the tap it is about room temperature.