Time to get in the darkroom

The lockdown has spurred me into getting on with some more extreme stuff I've been planning. So far it's sizing and coating paper to make my own bromoil paper (foma emulsion makes excellent bromoil paper). I've gotten to where I'm getting a near-factory coating that looks perfect when printed. Doing a 16x20 next for a large bromoil. Next is cutting a hole in the wall so I can print horizontally (the head hits the wall when tilted back) and rigging up an upright easel; then finishing out an unused space behind the darkroom as a spray booth and seeing if I can spray emulsion on large canvas. Just got a load of plywood and lumber (currently open joists and no floor in there!) And I'll need to build a large tray for the canvas with a drain to get the chems back in jugs and for washing. Canvas prints will be about 24x36 for starters. I've tested a lot of this stuff, this will be step one towards very large B&W darkroom prints on canvas.

"Problem" is, I still have a lot of billable work, and more coming in, thought I'd be fairly dead-in-the-water by now (freelance video shooter/editor/animator) but some clients are using this time to catch up on marketing projects. So I feel pretty lucky about that, me & the Mrs. should make it through fairly OK; she teaches yoga one-on-one but has moved many clients to skype.

Hope everyone is healthy and sane - a friend remarked to me, "nine months from now will either be a baby boom or a divorce boom..."

R.Gould said:

I'm the same, I never make a contact print, I have a good look at my negatives with a loupe, edecie what I want to print and just get on with the printing

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I too have not done contact sheets for many years, but now looking through the negs to see if I want to re / print up any of the older negs, it's becoming a bit of a pain. I wish I had done contact sheets as I went along, as I've now got a bit of a project ahead of me...

Terry S

I have now gone to doing quick scans with the scanner and gone from there. It is not as quick as doing a contact sheet but it saves on paper and chemistry.