Has anyone noticed a surge in interest in people setting up darkrooms?

Mainecoonmaniac · Aug 17, 2020

I'm on social media and I just noticed a surge in interest in people starting darkrooms. I get a sense that most of are under 30 years old. Prices of darkroom equipment has gone up quite a bit. 10 years ago, people were throwing away enlargers and now more people seem to covet them. I dumpster dove a free 120 color enlarger and 5 years ago, I bought a darkroom set up with a Beseler 45MXT, 16x20 print washer, 16x20 bladed easer and other accessories at my thrift store for $100. Is what's old is new again?

Michael Firstlight · Aug 17, 2020

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Is what's old is new again?

It's what's old is the only remaining option as there is scant new gear being made and what is being made costs an arm and a leg.

AgX · Aug 17, 2020

In a region of 1.5 million I only met one photographer having an active darkroom, but I met many who closed theirs.

pentaxuser · Aug 17, 2020

In a word, NO. I haven't noticed any such surge. I presume that this surge in interest in not among people who have joined Photrio recently They seem to be film-only hybrid types.

pentaxuser

Geoff Bartlett · Aug 17, 2020

Well, I just set one up. The darkrooms for hire have bee closing down and we're in a tight COVID-19 lockdown, so it was finally time to create a bathroom darkroom. I used it the first time yesterday.
I bought a Meopta Opemus 5 enlarger the very night lockdown started, spent a week or so making light blocks for the windows and ensure I still had some air flow. It's a tight space but it works.
The local retailer of film, paper, and darkroom chemicals says that demand has been growing over the last couple of years. So, maybe one day soon someone will start manufacturing enlargers again.

(PS: while I have set up a darkroom I amm not under 30).

wyofilm · Aug 17, 2020

Seems we just had a thread here recently with a university age photographer who was interested in expanding his darkroom to include a 4x5 enlarger. Thus, not a new darkroom, but continued use and expansion.

Not quantitative but if you search 'darkroom prints' or 'darkroom enlargers', you will see a fair number of videos pop up in the last year. Enough hits to convince me that there is a growing desire for darkroom work.

Intrepid cameras sells an excellent looking system to help burgeoning photographers convert a 4x5 camera into an enlarger. Great looking system at a pretty good price. Also, they have 'how to' videos on setting up and making the first print. They are a 'young' company who clearly see an expanding market for first time large format and darkroom photographers.

Ko.Fe. · Aug 17, 2020

Nothing I would describe as surge.

Sirius Glass · Aug 17, 2020

No I have not see a surge of people building darkrooms, nor have I see a few. In fact I have seen none.

mshchem · Aug 18, 2020

No, I really wish there was. I would settle for a surge in people making real proof sheets, contact sheets. When you jump straight to the scanner you're missing out on a important part of shooting on film. When I look at historical contact sheets of the 20th century shot by people using completely manual, no battery cameras, I'm always pleased to see black blacks and white whites. Auto exposure cameras tend to make every shade the same.
No film photographer should jump straight to scanning film. They should learn to use a meter. People should be able to make a sheet with 12, or 15, 36 exposures and have every frame be properly exposed.

wyofilm · Aug 18, 2020

These are somewhat strange comments, because if someone down the street installed a darkroom who would know? I don't know what constitutes a surge, but some new people are building/rebuilding darkrooms because there remains consumable products out there. Even new products. Why would Ilford bring out new paper in a shrinking market? Why would Bergger bring out printfilm? Why would Intrepid be backordered for weeks on an enlarger kit for 4x5 cameras? Why would a youtube channel that features darkroom work (shoot film like a boss) have 16K subscribers (no pewdiepie, but not bad for a film photography channel).

Moreover, youtube has the answer. New people are interested in building new darkrooms.
Ilford has one video out with 300K views: how to make your first darkroom print. I'm sure only a modest fraction of those viewers will build a darkroom, but there is clearly in interest in darkroom work.
Ilford photo has a 4 mo. old video on dodging and burning. Total views: 16k. 16k thousand views and no dancing kittens. Clearly some new people are interested in darkroom work.

Then there is the recent 'Building my own darkroom' on a channel with only 75 subscribers, but a video viewership of 1.5k. This type of disparity occurs when people are searching for darkroom information! (I quit watching very quickly.)

In the last 3 days there are two new videos specifically on home/new darkroom set ups from very knowledgeable sources. For a better idea of the interest out there check out these two videos:
(Lina Bessonova)
(Film photography project)

Yep. New people are looking to build new darkrooms. Don't let this secret out, but Photrio probably isn't the place younger film photographers interact much.

AgX · Aug 18, 2020

wyofilm said:
These are somewhat strange comments, because if someone down the street installed a darkroom who would know?

Yes and No. I for instance am around the art scene in general, with of course special interest in photography. I speak with photographers, academic educators, photo students, curators, rteesearchers, even with photographers I see on street, I visit each week art/photo academies. As often I talk with shop assistants in cameras stores and their customers. Over here darkroom stuff is dumped, rather than tried to sell.
This is my world. Internet and magazines, are a different world. Looking at that world, one might get a different impression.

A good source of information are manufacturers sales figures, but even with them one would not know who is buying that stuff.

Mainecoonmaniac · Aug 18, 2020

I work at a university art department and we never got rid of wet darkrooms. One of the plans for the future is to get rid of it for a bigger digital lab. With the recession, that maybe put on hold. But a lot of the students I see are interested in shooting film and going into the darkroom. It’s the few classes where students show up early and have extra darkroom time. They got bitten by the bug.

Luckless · Aug 18, 2020

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I work at a university art department and we never got rid of wet darkrooms. One of the plans for the future is to get rid of it for a bigger digital lab. With the recession, that maybe put on hold. But a lot of the students I see are interested in shooting film and going into the darkroom. It’s the few classes where students show up early and have extra darkroom time. They got bitten by the bug.

A second decent monitor, nearly any semi-modern computer that isn't complete trash, and a student's desk tucked away in a space they're already paying to heat and clean all on their own, and you basically have a perfectly workable digital photo lab.

Hopefully you can fight off admins trying to toss the wet lab, as that's a whole lot harder to rebuild at this point.

Michael Firstlight · Aug 18, 2020

I'd not say there's a surge, but there appears to be slow, steady vertical growth of people using film and a subset reviving old darkrooms or creating new darkrooms - slow and solid growth. It is evidenced by the used gear selling on auction sites over the past several years for those that are paying close attention - you can see how fast good darkroom gear gets snapped up. It's a fair barometer. If and when the resale of good gear starts to languish then that would indicate a slowing of growth, but we see the opposite as evidenced by the growth of new films and even some new gear that has been (very) slowly emerging. So surge? Maybe for shooting film, but not quite for self-processing - again, what I'd call slow, solid growth from what I've observed over the years.

I don't think film and darkrooms will ever die or grow wildly - it's just becoming a sustainable niche market.

MFL

foc · Aug 18, 2020

Who needs to set up a darkroom when you can have this.

Mainecoonmaniac · Aug 18, 2020

Luckless said:
A second decent monitor, nearly any semi-modern computer that isn't complete trash, and a student's desk tucked away in a space they're already paying to heat and clean all on their own, and you basically have a perfectly workable digital photo lab.

Hopefully you can fight off admins trying to toss the wet lab, as that's a whole lot harder to rebuild at this point.

I've built a few of computer labs for the university. It starts with a lot of excitement then many iterations with software, peripheral, and OS upgrades. 4 years later, the computers become too old to run the latest software then the computers get upgraded. We put them in a pile and ship them off the the university surplus store to be sold for a 10th of when they were new. It's very expensive. For our lab with 20 workstations, it cost $30K/year for all the upgrades which doesn't include my labor to keep it running. What increased the cost for the university is renting software vial the subscription model at $20/month per computer. The university budget is limited so they look at cutting expenses from elsewhere which includes staff. The darkroom side of the lab, the gear is decades old and upgrades are infrequent. Both are relevant. One just cost more. It's the same for photographers that shoot both digital and film.

Luckless · Aug 18, 2020

foc said:
Who needs to set up a darkroom when you can have this.

View attachment 252617

Have been going back and forth on designs for something a little fancier than that, but basically that kind of idea. As much as I would love to have a large and well equipped darkroom, having a storage cabinet that unfolds into an enlarger and development station that I can stick my hands [or my whole torso] in is sounding so much more practical and cost effective for someone who is still renting a place.

138S · Aug 18, 2020

My personal perception is that there is some surge in setting up darkrooms, and IMO this will grow. We have to learn what impact the covid event will have for traditional photography in the long term...

AgX · Aug 18, 2020

With public or academy darkrooms closed, there will be at least a loss of one year of training...

PFGS · Aug 18, 2020

I would love to test this hypothesis. Extra to my own darkroom needs I've got five functional enlargers, a big stack of trays, nice 4 blade easels, and bunch of other stuff in my shed that's too good to throw out and too bulky to ship profitably. It would be awesome to run with whatever darkroom moment might be happening and sell it all cheap to the eager young people of my university town, but I think that's going to have to wait for the pandemic to (abate? stabilize? bore us to tears? I don't even know)

David Brown · Aug 18, 2020

Yes, film sales are growing. Perhaps not among seasoned photographers. i.e., those of us that “did” film for decades because that was simply the way photography worked. There is a whole new generation of “new” film shooters. I know many of them, as there is an active and growing community in my area. The Ilford dealer in Dallas has reported sales increases each year for several years now.

However, while film sales numbers are up, new darkrooms may not be. It’s a paradox. This community of newer film shooters I know of are generally not printers (in either medium). They scan, if anything. And even if they scan their negatives, few are printed. They get shown electronically, same as most digital images.

I teach darkroom at Dallas Center for Photography. We have a hard time filling up the classes, in spite of the “interest” always expressed online when classes are mentioned, very few people will offer up the money to actually pay for instruction. (It's those Youtube videos ...)

I’m not saying I don’t get it entirely. And I understand as well as anyone that having a darkroom is a matter more of real estate than equipment or skill. In the film-only days, one would be much more likely to dedicate space to a darkroom because there was little choice other than sending work out to be printed by a lab. Now, fewer will make that investment in space.

pentaxuser · Aug 18, 2020

A sure sign that we are approaching a surge in darkrooms will be when journalists who occasionally mention the "old days" of darkrooms, stop using phrases such as smelly chemicals, enclosed, dimly lit etc I can't be bothered reading any of the current photography magazines but certainly a few years ago such adjectives and phrases that said that processing film and making prints involved great personal sacrifice on the part of those for whom there was unfortunately no other way to do photography

pentaxuser

Dusty Negative · Aug 19, 2020

[Anecdote Warning: This post contains first-person observations recklessly transformed via induction into Universally Binding Truths]. I had been told by many that I would literally trip over a good enlarger once I set my mind to getting one. “They’re giving them away,” I was assured. “I found mine lying in a trash pile,” another averred. Instead I scoured ebay and craigslist for about a half year looking for something under $300 that didn’t look like one of Fred G. Sanford’s bargain items (that’s Steptoe, I believe, to our cousins in Britannia).

Ergo, there must be some kind of uptick in demand for darkroom-related equipment.

George Collier · Aug 19, 2020

After retirement and reconnecting with my alma mater (at which I taught 3 levels of photography after graduating in the mid 70's), I went back early this year - just before the pandemic, to work with a group of 5th (final architectural thesis) year students. I met with them during a presentation of their work. As there are no longer any credited photo classes, they work in an independent study structure to allow credit, under the professor who knows the most about photography.
This group is working with "alternative" (analog) photography methods. I pointed out to them that "digital" is also an alternative - point taken. What was intriguing to me was the range in methods and forms of photography that were being explored. One student built from plywood and other materials a tintype camera. He buys emulsion on line and coats his own "tins". Another merges cad output with standard darkroom printing. Others pursue not so much technical options, but interpretive.
I brought some equipment down to supplement what remains of 4 working darkrooms active in the 90's - they still have a couple of Beseler 45m's and various other darkroom stuff. I took them for pizza and beer the first night I was there and they all came, except one. I talked to some faculty who were students when I was there about starting with a first year class to see what can happen over the 5 year program. It was more than encouraging. Then - the pandemic. We'll see.

Wallendo · Aug 19, 2020

I would not be surprised by an uptick, not necessarily a surge in darkroom interest. People are now trapped at home by COVID restrictions. We are only 5-6 months into this, although it seems like forever, and the pandemic probably has another 12-18 months before. It will be a while before people feels comfortable going out in crowds. A darkroom is an excellent way to stay busy at home.

I own darkroom equipment, but haven't constructed a room for it yet. I have a space picked out for it in my attics which I am slowly clearing away. Hopefully I can have plumbing run there and connect a small space to the HVAC system. With little college football this fall, I will hopefully have enough time to accomplish this.

Has anyone noticed a surge in interest in people setting up darkrooms?

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