Is it hard to setup a darkroom?

The was a really good book written in the early 1980s on darkroom design, the 1st 1/2 of the book was descriptions of working darkrooms of some very famous photographers including Eugene Smith, and Bernice Abbott. It had some really neat plans for large and small darkrooms. Does anyone recall the title and authors?

Paul

I will second all of the recommendations to do this. I have a temporary one that I just got everything together and haven't printed yet. That is because when I set it up I am not tearing it down for a couple of days. But I do love it.

G

Bob F. said:

If you are talking B&W then all the above applies. If you are talking colour, then your problem is going to be the pong from the chemicals unless you have a daylight processor such as a Jobo and the more complex processing cycle.

Click to expand...

I don't agree with this at all. I use Paterson RA4 chemistry and it doesn't 'pong' a bit at room temp with normal ventilation. Colour processing at room temp is the same as Black & White except for working in the dark.

Graham.

gbroadbridge said:

I don't agree with this at all. I use Paterson RA4 chemistry and it doesn't 'pong' a bit at room temp with normal ventilation. Colour processing at room temp is the same as Black & White except for working in the dark.

Graham.

Click to expand...

I stand corrected - seems most are low temp and odourless these days. Must give it a try again (being colour blind does not help tho)....

Bob.

snaggs said:

It all seems kind of daunting, I love shooting film, and a friend gave me his enlargers etc... I just dont know what to do with them and how to set them up in a normal house.

Or given I have a large format printer (24"), should I just not bother?

Daniel.

Click to expand...

You know, here's how it went for me. I was frustrated with every new digital camera I bought - it just didn't work like my film cameras. Press the shutter, wait 3/4 second, or more, finally the shutter triggers. All to a lovely fake shutter sound. Frustrating, and I felt so, well, dumb.

So I went back to my film cameras - a Wista 4x5, a Mamiya 6mf, a Nikon n70, and an old olympus 35RD. I felt back in control.

Then came the realization that I had a nice photo printer - a high end HP model that would print nice, archival prints (up to 8.5x11). All I needed was a scanner. Bought the scanner.

Started scanning and printing. Realized that the Photoshop elements software that came with the scanner, and the scanner driver software itself, sucked. Bought Photoshop (full blown one, with the full blown price). Bought Vuescan to drive the scanner.

Realized with all this, scanning and photoshopping is boring, wearing on my patience and my carpal tunnels. And no matter how hard I try, the results coming off the scanner from the negatives and slides just, well, suck, compared to the negative and slides themselves.

Realized I needed to invest in a real scanner, like an Imacon or drum scanner, rather than my flatbed scanner, if I wanted those eye popping scans. And, by the way, my B&W prints look *terrible* on the inkjet. I need one that prints real black, without metamerism. And that can print 11x14, or 16x20. DIDN'T BUY THE SCANNER OR THE PRINTER. Instead, bought an enlarger, built a darkroom. Prints scan really nice on a cheap flatbed if I need to upload to APUG...

Ahhhhhhh.....

Hi Paul

Darkroom 2 had photos of , Judy Dater, Frank Gohlke , Emmet Gowin, Charles Harbutt , Lisette Model, Hans Namuth , Doug Prince , Arron Siskind, Neal Slavin, and Cole Weston,
It was Edited by Jain Kelly,
Lustrum Press.
I know the book you are refering to and I had it and now I can't find it.Sorry.

chuck94022 said:

You know, here's how it went for me. I was frustrated with every new digital camera I bought - it just didn't work like my film cameras. Press the shutter, wait 3/4 second, or more, finally the shutter triggers. All to a lovely fake shutter sound. Frustrating, and I felt so, well, dumb.

Click to expand...

Just to be a devils advocate:

This is not true of a digital SLR, which sounds and reacts just like a film camera.

Even so the output is digicrap. One day when we have 200 Megapixel cams, with 12 bit colour depth I'll go there again. As it is I have a 6 MP Fuji digicam that cost a lot of money 12 months ago, that I give to the kids at the beach

Graham

Daniel-

A lot of the decisions around where your darkroom will be most convenient have to do with your living arrangements.

I live alone (well, me and the cat), and I rarely eat a meal at home other than breakfast. Although I have a stove/oven and a microwave, I never use them. So my kitchen is my darkroom.

I put my enlarger (a 4x5 beast) on my kitchen table. I cleared off counter space next to the sink for my trays. I store my film and paper in my refridgerator. (There's a lot more film than food in my house.) I've hung a garment bag in a doorframe to use for film drying. I dry test prints in the microwave. I replaced one of the light fixtures with a red bulb that works perfectly as a safelight. I can dry prints on fiberglass screens that I stretch between two kitchen chairs, using books to weight the ends of the screen. (I can easily stretch the screen to 12 feet if I need to.)

If I was sharing my living space, I'd move all of this stuff into my laundry room. I'd have to build a vertical drying rack and do some basic carpentry to make a dry-side counter, but I'd use the laundry tubs for all of my wet work. I figure that if I ever need to start sharing my space, I'm about two weeks away from having my darkroom moved completely out of the kitchen. (Storing the film and paper will be the only real issue...I think two refridgerators would be my answer.)

I guess my point is this: Find a space that you can use, and work with it. People have been using closets as darkrooms for years. Garages too. There are always ways to work these things out. Once you've settled on the space, that will dictate how much you'll have to build, how much vertical space you'll have to use (like stacked trays and stacked drying racks), and pretty much how much you'll have to invest.

Giving up my kitchen was a no brainer for me. (Heck, I'd already given up my living room floor for equipment storage!) Whatever space you can use, you can make work. Darkrooms just need to be dark. They really don't have to have running water. (They do need electricity; extension cords can be your friends!)

Good luck with your project. I think the magic of the darkroom far outweighs the digital way (and this comment comes from someone with two film scanners, four printers, two monitors, and a whole bunch of other digicam stuff that sees almost no use any more).

Be well.
Dave

gbroadbridge said:

Just to be a devils advocate:

This is not true of a digital SLR, which sounds and reacts just like a film camera.

Click to expand...

Yup, well aware of that, but by the time I got to the "I need a Digital SLR" realization I had already crossed the "I need film" bridge.

chuck94022 said:

Yup, well aware of that, but by the time I got to the "I need a Digital SLR" realization I had already crossed the "I need film" bridge.

Click to expand...

For some reason this post made my 21 month old kid laugh.

He's already a photog and likes me to read the NG each night

Attached is a photo he took (without help) last week. He held the camera, pointed it at mom, and pressed the shutter himself

The New Darkroom Handbook, Joe DeMaio, Roberta Worth, Dennis Curtin. I own that book, it's an awesome book, recommended highly!

Paul Howell said:

The was a really good book written in the early 1980s on darkroom design, the 1st 1/2 of the book was descriptions of working darkrooms of some very famous photographers including Eugene Smith, and Bernice Abbott. It had some really neat plans for large and small darkrooms. Does anyone recall the title and authors?

Paul

Click to expand...

When I started darkroom work it was so easy that I couldn't beleive that that was all there was to it. Of course it wasn't: you can be up and running in a few hours then keep on learning more for a lifetime. As they say, anyone who says the camera cannot lie has never worked in a dark room.

By the way, I so agree with the complaint on the dalay between pressing the shutter and taking a picture with digital cameras (and some auto focus film cameras). On the odd occasion when I use mine I have it on manual focus and exposure and there is still at least half a second's delay before it notices that something is expected of it and goes off. If you want to use flash it can be two or three seconds. So much for the critical moment.

David.

snaggs said:

It all seems kind of daunting, I love shooting film, and a friend gave me his enlargers etc... I just dont know what to do with them and how to set them up in a normal house.

Or given I have a large format printer (24"), should I just not bother?

Daniel.

Click to expand...

Hi 'inky!'

I was a renter for most of my life; apartments for many years, then houses. Every place I have lived, I have found it possible to set up a temporary darkroom using some black electrical tape, blankets, etc. The vast majority of my temporary darkrooms were bathrooms as they usually have no more than 1 window and 1 door.

A window can be blanked out by making a wooden frame to fit the window and covering it with a sandwich of black builders plastic with aluminum foil in the middle - 100% light proof and light weight. Some electrical tape or black neoprene weather stripping makes the edges light-tight.

The key to any temporary darkroom is creativity. Almost any room can be made light tight.

When I bought my own house, the first room to get set up was the darkroom!

snaggs said:

Or given I have a large format printer (24"), should I just not bother?

Click to expand...

A miniature film format and a large format printer? Dan