If I'd win the Lottery, I'd build and staff the Ultimate Darkroom

Do you process film and/or paper

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    Votes: 25 100.0%

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    25

mshchem

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If I got rich, I would contract to build a multimillion dollar darkroom. Best in the world. Accumulate equipment, books, film, papers, chemistry. Old and new. I would hire people to staff the place. Fund an endowment that would ensure the place would continue.
I look at the technical publications from Kodak, from the beginning through the 80's, most of the authors are long gone.

It's just a pipe dream of mine

What do you think?
 

Daniela

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Count me in! (Just walked by my closed-for-the-summer darkroom today and got went into withdrawal )
 

Prest_400

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I'd seasonally move to Rochester, where the magic happens Well, actually, the "Highest tech" film manufacturer but I suspect nowadays Ilford is more vertically integrated for B&W processes and make paper. Checking out the videos of tours is quite interesting to get an image of what is actually behind the industry, and years ago would have been impossible!
About the technical publications, sadly Kodak has lost a lot. Aside of general datasheets, the post-bankruptcy fragmentation (eg. Chemistry) shows and I recall someone mentioned specifically this recently.

I am happy with my local community darkroom; Fully equipped for my needs, a bit incomplete for color. I should actually do more printing than I am doing nowadays...
 

cliveh

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Daniela said:
Count me in! (Just walked by my closed-for-the-summer darkroom today and got went into withdrawal )
Click to expand...

Is that a Paris community darkroom? The reason I ask, is that I sold my De Vere enlarger to such a body.
 

btaylor

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mshchem- don’t you already have the ultimate darkroom? What’s on your wish list? Your idea kinda sounds like a working museum which is great! What a wonderful way it would be to help keep analogue alive.
I am very happy that I was able piece together the darkroom I always wanted, and now that I am retired I have the time to spend in it. There’s nothing left on my shopping list.
On a happy side note a new camera store,
Eagle Rock Camera, opened down the street from me. They are devoted to film and the showroom has everything from Minox to 8x10 gear and roll film for sale. And they say they’re putting a lab in the back this fall. Owned by a couple of Gen Xer’s so I guess they were there during the transition to digi but came back to film. Very encouraging!
 
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mshchem

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I've got a nice bunch of stuff, no doubt. It would be neat to have a properly planned and executed first class setup. Starting in the beginning and going forward to today.

As long as I'm dreaming setup a long-term relationship with the companies that supply to guarantee product purchases.
 
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mshchem

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I love em all. Ilford is amazing, so is Foma and the rest. I have been organizing today, finding all my old books. So darn cool!
 

Daniela

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cliveh said:
Is that a Paris community darkroom? The reason I ask, is that I sold my De Vere enlarger to such a body.
Click to expand...

No, I'm just outside of Paris. The problem with the ones in Paris is that they're a lot more expensive (double/triple the cost of the one I use, which is in a municipal art school).
 

Chan Tran

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I build and equip the darkroom but no staff. The idea of having of darkroom is to do it myself.
 
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mshchem

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Chan Tran said:
I build and equip the darkroom but no staff. The idea of having of darkroom is to do it myself.
Click to expand...

Wait until you have more things than you can conceivably get done yourself Plus, this is lottery money, so you'll have 3 identical facilities. Think NASA money
 

MattKing

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I've worked in a couple of darkrooms that would have taken up a chunk of those winnings.
And I have friends who currently have extraordinarily high end old, used equipment that more than fills a fantastic group darkroom.
But if I won the Lottery, I'd use it to buy the home - and perhaps attached/nearby workshop area - to give me a place to take advantage of the darkroom stuff I already have.
Plus a couple of other things.
And if the winnings were enough, I'd build the darkroom in a way that would suit sharing it from time to time with many of my friends.
No staff though.
 

Paul Howell

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A commercial lab that will lose money? If I had that much money, the billions, I would buy the Sino Promise facility in Denver. Make color paper, then switch and to make rented rent Kodak formulas for polycontrast, graded, and contact print papers in RC and VR. While I am at it modified the system to make limited runs of Kodak or even GAF legacy films, Panantomc X, Plus X, GAF 500, then turn it into a non profit.
 

MattKing

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Paul Howell said:
I would buy the Sino Promise facility in Denver.
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I don't think it was ever owned by Sino Promise. I think it was/is owned by Carestream, after they obtained it from Eastman Kodak.
I believe that there were some leasehold interests that resulted in Kodak Alaris using it for producing RA4 paper, but not owning it. I'm not sure whether those leasehold interests actually ended up in Sino Promise's hands.
 

Don_ih

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Maybe someone should petition Dupont to start making photographic paper. Kodak clearly will never do any such thing again.
 

4season

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Sounds like fun, but why would this dream require millions of $$ plus staffing?
 

Andrew O'Neill

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If I won big in the lottery, I'd commission Kodak to make a master roll of HIE, then cut it all up for me in 8x10, and 20x24. Then I'd buy a 20x24 camera. Then I'd buy a walk-in freezer for all that film.
 

Melvin J Bramley

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I would rather spend my money at workshops by John Sexton and others to improve my, nowadays, miserable darkroom output!
Over my considerable lifetime I have spent vast amounts of money on gear that did little to improve my craft.
Looking back at my stock of black and white photos I see many good photos from the most basic of equipment such as an old Paterson all plastic enlarger!
 
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mshchem

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OK, I'm a goofy rocket billionaire. I'm buying Kodak. Bring back Infrared spy film and the satellites

Best money would probably be in building several hundred basic community places with a caretaker.
 

Chan Tran

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mshchem said:
Wait until you have more things than you can conceivably get done yourself Plus, this is lottery money, so you'll have 3 identical facilities. Think NASA money
Click to expand...

It's not fun to have someone does it for me. So if it's more fun than I can handle then I simply don't do it that much. If you hire staff why don't you hire them take the pictures and do all the processing? That's the thing to do if you are a professional wanting to make money but not for someone who has a lot of money and wants to have fun.
 

4season

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If I had billions, I'd be eating noodles, not once, but at least twice a month! Ramen, linguine, dan dan, pho: It's all good. And for the owner of one particular eatery, high-CRI lighting, because the lighting he's using now has the funkiest color rendition which no custom white balance or color profile can adequately fix.

I'd consider having someone else handle the darkroom side of things for me: We'd collaborate to achieve whatever specific "look" that I might desire. But I have mixed enough chemistry and spotted enough prints to last me a lifetime.
 
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mshchem

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Oh it would be nice to have someone to crawl upside down under sinks hooking up plumbing (wait I love that part). Still a young cohort, paid, would be fun.
 
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