Just Be Careful and Enjoy

[ColColt]

Many may know some of the potential hazards of darkroom work and mixing certain chemicals while others may not. This is just a heads up.

Dead Link Removed

 

[wy2l]

It's a absolute miracle analog photographers are still alive, considering such toxic chemicals.

Why hasn't the Government interviened to protect us by removed these extreamly toxic chemicals?

 

[bsdunek]

Wow! After 67 years of working in the darkroom it's a wonder I'm still alive. Guess common sense trumps sensationalism every time.

 

[ColColt]

Why hasn't the Government interviened to protect us by removed these extreamly toxic chemicals?

They expect us to use common sense and educate ourselves. We certainly don't need "big brother" in yet another aspect of our lives. They probably know your hobby and what you have stored anyway.

They won't tell you not to mix Spic n' Span and bleach together either.

 

[MattKing]

The linked to document is oriented toward school darkrooms. If you ask anyone here on APUG who teaches or deals with students (ann, Vaughan, ???) I think they will tell you that students can do the craziest things.

I would rather see students (and teachers) learn to be more careful than may be necessary, than less careful than they should be.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Generally it is considered poor form to drink photochemicals and to run a darkroom without adequate ventilation.

 

[ColColt]

When I was doing a lot of darkroom work my trays would get nasty, both developer and fixer trays.
For one, and I can't recall which I used with which tray, I used Potassium Dichromate(orange crystals best I recall) and Muriatic acid and for the other had purple crystals but can't recall the name...nasty stuff but it worked.

 

[ColColt]

I knew it would come to me...Potassium Permanganate and Sulfuric acid for stains in fixer trays.

BTW-always add acid to solution slowly, not the other way around!

 

[Mr Bill]

I'd like to see the same author write a warning about visiting your local park. Beware the flying creatures that seek you out to suck your blood. Even worse are the ones that may use a stinger to inject venom into you. Then there are the locations where dihydrogen oxide has pooled in a low lying area - if you fall in and aspirate any into your lungs ... well, it may be the end of you. Fortunately for me, I was trained as a child how to protect myself from it. I don't want to be seen as a braggart, but in truth I sometimes find pleasure in entering those pools and swimming around.

In truth, I'm barely even afraid of the darkroom. When you've hung around parks like I have, a darkroom is not that big a deal.

On a more serious note, I think anyone using a darkroom should be familiar with the chemicals, at least to the extent of "what do I do if I get some in my eye, or perhaps spill some, and how to dispose of it?" Having a set of MSDS, material safety data sheets, around is probably about the best source of data, keeping in mind that they tend to be pretty conservative.

 

[marciofs]

I actually used to have my face just on the developer to watch my prints coming out. And often I felt sleepy but only later on I realized the reason.

Recently I was tonning a print with selenium on the window, but I guess the wind coming from outside blowed the vapor inside and I felt dizzy. I tried again a couple of days later with a fan blowing the vapor outside. But I am considering stop toning my prints.

Also. I have a fan blowing air inside the 2m tent where I do my prints. But I am not sure if the best is to have air blowing from outside to inside or the opposite.

 

[DREW WILEY]

There's an old fellow across the street with a cabinet shop. Whenever he intends to hire a temporary helper, his standard question is, "Are
you afraid of that table saw?" If someone answers "no", as most do, he instantly tells them to get lost, "I only hire people who are afraid of
the equipment; that's why I still have all my fingers left." I feel the same way about the darkroom and lungs. You need to have a healthy
respect for any kind of chemicals, though some are far worse than others. But what I'm REALLY worried about at the moment is that Scooter
the cat sneaked into the darkroom last night, and I sure hope he didn't leave a calling card somewhere in there!

 

[Sirius Glass]

I'd like to see the same author write a warning about visiting your local park. Beware the flying creatures that seek you out to suck your blood. Even worse are the ones that may use a stinger to inject venom into you. Then there are the locations where dihydrogen oxide has pooled in a low lying area - if you fall in and aspirate any into your lungs ... well, it may be the end of you. Fortunately for me, I was trained as a child how to protect myself from it. I don't want to be seen as a braggart, but in truth I sometimes find pleasure in entering those pools and swimming around.

Dihydrogen oxide has been know to cause women to gain weight. Additionally releasing dihydrogen oxide from ones body into a swimming pool can alter the pools' pH and salinity.

 

[marciofs]

Dihydrogen oxide has been know to cause women to gain weight. Additionally releasing dihydrogen oxide from ones body into a swimming pool can alter the pools' pH and salinity.

The problem may not be about what is in the solution but how concentrated it is in the solution.

Even water in eccess can case problems.

 

[Vaughn]

The linked to document is oriented toward school darkrooms. If you ask anyone here on APUG who teaches or deals with students (ann, Vaughan, ???) I think they will tell you that students can do the craziest things.

I would rather see students (and teachers) learn to be more careful than may be necessary, than less careful than they should be.

I volunteered at a college darkroom (as a darkroom assistant), one or two quarters a year for 12 or so years...then I was the paid darkroom tech for the same darkroom for 23 years. For almost all of that time, the professors tended to be a bit loose on the chemical safety issues -- warnings in the sylabus at the beginning of the semester and then you are on your own. I was working (paid) halftime and supervising 15 to 20 volunteer and/or workstudy students and keeping the darkroom and related facilities open for 36 hours/week for instructional use (six darkroom classes of 25 students each a semester), and an additional 70 to 80 hours a week of open lab -- and some core students who worked thru the early morning hours after the 'official' closing time of midnight.

So, basically any safety issues tended to fall to me. I would run new darkroom assistants in small groups thru an hour of on-site training, and then would be at their first shift (usually 3 hours) to run thru things again individually -- I would help them mix chemistry, set up the trays for print processing, and most important, following the closing down procedures (including how to easily get rid of students who "needed so badly" to make one more print), and handling the used chemicals. I wrote clear step-by-step instructions and almost begged them to see me or call me if they had any questions -- or go to one of the experienced assistants. And there was a lot more informal mentoring going on between new assistants and experienced.

And in turn, the assistants helped and kept an eye on the students during the 80 hours/week of open darkroom time...and in general this happened naturally... I encouraged the lab assistants to do their own photographic work during their shifts, providing their other duties were also covered. They provided a great example for beginning students especially on working habits. We had just the one large darkroom (20 enlargers), so everyone worked together -- and sloppy chemical and wet paper handling was not allowed.

Usually a professor would give me a heads up if he or she were going to have a class do an alternative process, toning or the like. And it helped that I ordered and stored all the photo chemicals, so I knew what was coming into the photo lab. I would arrange to talk to a class the first time they experience new chemicals or a new process; covering any special precautions that needed to be considered. And often I was there helping out, time permitting.

Still -- students will do the darnest things...who thought that placing a piece of photo paper against the enlarger, then spraying Dektol on it with a spray bottle was a good idea? Why is the top of one of the D5-XLs dented up? And try to pour a gallon of pre-mixed Kodak Rapid-Fix into a tray that someone must have put in 2 oz of Part A and 16 oz of Part B instead of the other way around? Nasty!

But research into a new process is recommended. Thru insufficient research into platinum printing, and following what I thought were normal procedures, I now have asthma (from exposure to platinum dust when blow drying freshly coated paper). It took 5 years of platinum printing (one or two printing sessions a week) -- and perhaps helped along by the prior twenty years of general chemical exposure of working in a large darkroom facility and spending my free time doing the same -- to hit me.

With most of the students, they passed thru the darkroom pretty fast -- a semester or two, or four -- then they moved on. Exposure was rather limited, and usually limited to B&W processes, with maybe a touch of alt.

 

[DREW WILEY]

It's helps to take a basic high school chemistry class ... that is, unless the class bonehead happens to randomly pour chemicals down the drain
and literally blows up all the room below containing all the lab plumbing, which is exactly what happened to my school. I won't mention what
generally got developed in the school darkroom, but it wasn't photographs! Plenty of boneheads there too!

 

[nworth]

Most darkroom chemicals, at the concentrations used, are pretty benign. Only a few of the concentrated chemicals need exceptional care. Anchell's popular "The Darkroom Cookbook" has good and useful information. Concentrated acids (including glacial acetic acid) and alkalies like sodium hydroxide need to be handled with care. Fumes can be very harmful, including the fumes from acetic acid which, when concentrated, can choke you and burn your lungs. If ammonia or ammonium compounds are made alkaline, gaseous ammonia is released, which is also toxic when concentrated. If sodium sulfide (used in sepia toners) is made acid, it releases very poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas. Developing agents, in the quantities usually used, are mostly fairly benign. But pyrogallol and phenylene diamine are significantly toxic. Pyrogallol is especially bad since it is a fine powder that disperses in the air; it is toxic when inhaled. It's best to be careful about spills and spreading dust about, but rubber gloves and dust masks offer protection for the sloppy. Washing up after mixing darkroom chemicals is another sensible precaution. Noting one of the previous posts, it is well to know that chromium appears in the darkroom in two different forms: the chromium III of potassium chrome alum, which is fairly benign, and the chromium VI of potassium dichromate, which is poisonous and a moderate carcinogen (though not at the amounts we usually encounter in the darkroom). The "clearing bath" or similar treatment called for after using dichromate bleaches (usually a sulfite solution) converts the VI form back to the less toxic III form.

 

[CropDusterMan]

Ansel made it to 82 years old, and he used to have his hands in the sh%t for hours, days and years.

Chemical this chemical that. Sensationalism. Common sense is a great defense. Unfortunately, it's
no very common. Use according to labels, and you'll be ok. If you feel the need to worry...insert
formatted card into digital and go away. :O)

 

[Peter Simpson]

BTW-always add acid to solution slowly, not the other way around!

Do as you oughta - add acid to watah!

(only rhymes in Boston)

 

[MartinP]

I actually used to have my face just on the developer to watch my prints coming out. And often I felt sleepy but only later on I realized the reason.

Recently I was tonning a print with selenium on the window, but I guess the wind coming from outside blowed the vapor inside and I felt dizzy. I tried again a couple of days later with a fan blowing the vapor outside. But I am considering stop toning my prints.

Also. I have a fan blowing air inside the 2m tent where I do my prints. But I am not sure if the best is to have air blowing from outside to inside or the opposite.

What sort of developer were you using? Please show chemical evidence that developer makes people 'sleepy'!

Selenium toner is mixed in a solution which results in (at typical dilutions) less than 1/2% selenium sulphite (according to Kodak data-sheets, Edit: Ilford's datasheet mentions sodium selenite instead) and this is in solution and cannot form a vapour. The stuff that we smell is ammonia. Place a piece of perspex over the tray and improve the ventilation of the work-area.

In general, clean up any drops or spillages before they dry (this should be standard practice for all materials, of course), use tongs to handle prints, wear nitrile (or equivalent, not latex) gloves, and use an apron and eye-protection for any heavy pouring that might cause splashes. Most importantly read, understand and follow the safety sheets for the materials so that the infamous "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt" does not give you bizarre nightmares.