The Joys of The Darkroom

[pdeeh]

I've been printing for a couple of weeks now, so quite new to that sort of thing ... and I just spent a couple of pleasant hours contact printing 5x4 pinhole shots.

As the prints started to dry, they did seem a bit of an odd colour though ... sort of yellowy, pinky ... and it seemed to be getting worse and darker the longer I looked at them ... hmmm ... better google for "yellowing prints" ... not washing enough? No, washed in running water for longer than the approved time for RC paper ... developer problem? No, freshly made ... well then, exhausted fixer? No, definitely came out of the bottle marked "print fixer 1+9" ... hmmm .... let's just sniff that fixer ... ah-hah, light dawns ...

well, I have no idea what was in the bottle marked fixer, but it wasn't fixer ...

 

[Stephanie Brim]

My actual JOB job, that I started doing a while back, is dyeing yarn. There are days now when I smell like ammonia and vinegar *AT THE SAME TIME*. I love those days. It means I did two of my favorite things.

 

[pdeeh]

exactly ... I sort of knew something was missing all evening, but the penny hadn't dropped that it was the smell ...

 

[bdilgard]

I use my darkroom for several things including tie dyeing. The jug of "water" I grabbed to mix up a bag of fixer turned out to be some soda ash mixture used for fixing the dye into the fabric. Took a little while to figure out why my fixer was so sudsy.