History of darkrooms and darkroom equipment

Michel Hardy-Vallée said:

Rudolph Edse: une autobiographie involontaire, Loco, 2018
- An eBay find: Campeau found the photo archive of an extremely dedicated German amateur who had a top-notch colour darkroom since the 1940s.

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AgX said:

Edse was a german military researcher who went to the USA in `45 and stayed there. His darkroom thus was american.

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michael_r said:

2005 was also when Kodak stopped making paper.

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ozmoose said:

The early Kodak photo guides, long marketed worldwide as How To Take Good Pictures, and the Leica Guide series published from 1935 to the 1960s and possibly later, are invaluable for early darkroom history, even though they are (somewhat limited) to Kodak and Leitz products, respectively.

I have a very early Kodak How To book from circa 1920. The photographs in it are period pieces, and it also has detailed descriptions and information on using cameras, printers, enlargers, developing, printing and other processes popular at the time. All the models used in it (most likely Kodak employees) were young and so nicely dressed - I look at the images and think, all these people are now long gone and most of the equipment they were demonstrating how to use, probably no longer exists, all in land fill or destroyed. An odd feeling...

Old photo and darkroom books were easily found and quite cheap in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s, but vanished from the bookshops after 2000 - maybe because I bought most of them, ha!! Also the many catalogues put out every year by photo retailers in the USA and Britain, the latter contain much useful information on cameras, films, papers and enlargers of that era. these aren't so much historical compilations as sales brochures of what gear was available at the time, but back then (unlike now) they provided a lot of data on the gear being sold.

Kodak also put out detailed data guides from 1945 or 1946. I have a bound edition of the first series and it's a real blast from the past and surprisingly useful, especially when I get the urge to mix developers I routinely used half a century ago, like Kodak DK60a.

I have a collection of about 50 such books which are a useful reference library for me when I feel like reading up on what photography was like even in the 1960s when I first dipped my toes into the racket. The products on offer were very different then, some have lasted but many are gone. I have to say a lot of what we can buy now is just as good - it took me a long time to get over the loss of Panatomic-X film when Kodak discontinued it in the late 1980s, but as time passed I went over to the TMax films and now to Ilford FP4 and HP5, and these days I no longer look back with fond nostalgia as much as I did even a decade ago.

Sadly, there is so little interest in the photographic past now. In 2018 I contacted the state libraries of Tasmania and Victoria and offered them my collection as a donation, but the Tasmanians did not bother to respond and the Victorians emailed me after six months to say no thanks. So who knows what I will do with the lot in time - maybe Ebay.

Best of luck in your search, it's a fascinating subject but it can consume your time and energy if you let it, so beware. I developed (bad pun, yes) a great fascination for Old Developers and spent a few year mixing up odd brews that for the most part, didn't give me results any better than what the current lot of availables can do. Do read and heed...

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sasah zib said:

View attachment 286424
old solutions re-introduced

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michael_r said:

There was a relatively well known book - I can’t remember exactly what it was called but they had it at my local library so maybe I can find it - it was (I think) primarily about darkroom planning but had pictures and descriptions of the darkrooms of several big name photographers like Tice, Siskind etc. A few were neat and tidy (Tice for example) and some were crazy messes. I wish I could remember the name of that book.

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sasah zib said:

perhaps:
DeMaio, Joe, Curtin, Dennis, The darkroom handbook - A complete guide to the best design, construction and equipment. Curtin & London inc. Marblehead, Massachusetts, 1979

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mooseontheloose said:

... I'm not so much interested in recreating the tools and chemicals used at that time, but more interested in the actual physical darkroom objects - trays, bottles, lamps, etc. It could include chemicals as well, as I'm sure the darkroom user of the past worked more with individual chems for mixing, rather than the pre-made developers, stop, fix, toners, etc. that many (most?) darkroom users use now. As you have mentioned, many of the items that were in common use at one time may be completely gone and if found, be unrecognizable to a current darkroom user. This has been my experience as I've come across old darkroom equipment for sale and had no idea what it was, or if I did, how I could use it. As a historian, it's the use of the objects that interest me. I know the old books you mentioned would be an invaluable resource, and if I had the chance to go to Australia I would be happy to make a special trip to see your collection, but at the same time I'm interested in photos of not only the sterile, perfectly positioned photos for ads, but ideally of the nitty gritty mess and chaos of real darkrooms, although who knows if people actually photographed their darkrooms way back when.

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michael_r said:

There was a relatively well known book - I can’t remember exactly what it was called but they had it at my local library so maybe I can find it - it was (I think) primarily about darkroom planning but had pictures and descriptions of the darkrooms of several big name photographers like Tice, Siskind etc. A few were neat and tidy (Tice for example) and some were crazy messes. I wish I could remember the name of that book.

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sasah zib said:

perhaps:
DeMaio, Joe, Curtin, Dennis, The darkroom handbook - A complete guide to the best design, construction and equipment. Curtin & London inc. Marblehead, Massachusetts, 1979

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