Odd things found in a darkroom

Okay I technically didn't find this in a darkroom, but...

I was visiting my parents today and they remembered an old pinhole camera i'd built when I was in high school. I used 4x5 paper negatives in it. We went looking for it and I ran across two half-gallon Delta 1 "Datatainer" bottles. They had who knows what in them. They were from 25+ years ago so I was sure they weren't any good, but figured I could rinse the bottles and use them once I get a darkroom set up to play around with pinhole photography again. One bottle had "fixer" wrote on it very faintly and when I poured it out smelled like fixer (it went down the drain because who knows how well 25-year-old fixer works). The other bottle was unlabeled and the liquid in it was bright red. I would assume it was developer of some sort, probably Dektol.

Incidentally the price tags were still on both bottles - $2.39. B&H still sells these for $3.95.

What sorts of things (that you may or may not have forgotten about) have you found in your darkroom?

When I was in high school I had my first darkroom. Mom decided to be nice and clean it for me one day while I was at school.. Unfortunately she found a pair of panties in the darkroom. I was still explaining that disaster years later. Mom said my girlfriend at the time was no longer welcome in our house. Sheesh!! Don

Cleaning out my Dad's darkroom after he died, back in 1999, I came across some very interesting things. One of them was a book of tinting papers. These are Kodak Velox papers. You use a wet brush, and can pick up color and tint your prints.

I do remember his tinted prints years ago. Sort of like Marshall Oils, but more subtle. Never the less, very nice. I don't use these - they reside in my antique camera and photo equipment collection display.

lightwisps said:

When I was in high school I had my first darkroom. Mom decided to be nice and clean it for me one day while I was at school.. Unfortunately she found a pair of panties in the darkroom. I was still explaining that disaster years later. Mom said my girlfriend at the time was no longer welcome in our house. Sheesh!! Don

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Did you use that famous line on your girl friend, "Come down to my darkroom and let's see what develops"???

Sure, blame it all on the girl.

lightwisps said:

...I was still explaining that disaster years later. Mom said my girlfriend at the time was no longer welcome in our house. Sheesh!! Don

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Creativity should have been your strong point! How about, "Mom, every darkroom has a pair of panties. There's no better, cheaper way of straining those little black specks from used Selenium toner!" Or, "Thanks, mom! I've been looking for those. They're a prop for this weekends portrait shoot." Or even, "That darned cat (dog)! She/he's been dragging all kinds of things in here lately. You have to be sure the door's closed tightly when you leave."



Mike

lightwisps said:

When I was in high school I had my first darkroom. Mom decided to be nice and clean it for me one day while I was at school.. Unfortunately she found a pair of panties in the darkroom. I was still explaining that disaster years later. Mom said my girlfriend at the time was no longer welcome in our house. Sheesh!! Don

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It is easy to imagine how they got there. What makes me wonder is why your girlfriend didn't take them with her after her modeling assignment

Kodak Day-Load tank. (circa 1950's)

This was only for 35-mm. It had two compartments -- the reel and a smaller one for the cassette. The film was attached to the hub of the reel, both compartments were closed and the film wound (hopefully) to follow the spiral grooves. A light trap was closed and the film cut off. With the cassette removed, chemicals could be poured into the smaller compartment.

As there was no way to know if the load had been successful until the film came out, this must have had the potential for some serious disaster! I developed my first rolls of Anscochrome in it and it worked perfectly every time. By the time I got serious about this, I had migrated to Nikor and the Kodak was shelved.

Incidentally, a 1906 Kodak ad bills what is explicitly called a 'daylight' tank. The ad has a guy camped in the woods somewhere peeling out a presumably wet roll of film. On the ground is a wood box with a crank, what appears to be a round metal tank and a couple reels. The ad proclaims that "It's all by daylight, as simple as 'pressing the button', and the experts say that it gives better results than the dark-room method".

Anyone know how this might have worked? From the illustration, I can't make it out.

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