Darkroom Skills...A Dying Art??

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Yashica FX3

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Hi all. Still finding my way around the forum so apologies if I keep posting in the wrong place.
I have only just taught myself (with the help of lots of instructional videos and wider reading) to develop my own black and white 35mm film. I now want to learn some Darkroom skills. I have been amazed by how difficult it has been to source any courses or a mentor who could teach me in my immediate area...even being told by a local camera club that they don't teach this any more.
Is it really that much of a dying art?? One kind person offered to help but has not printed for my years and is a 2 hour drive away from me. I really have been surprised at how difficult it has been to find some guidance or courses.
 
Where are you based?
I was lucky, my dad taught me the basics, but I learnt the most from trial and error.
 
Yashica FX3 said:
Hi Peter B, yes I have had a look there and it actually got me connected with someone who does wetplate photography....that will be for further down the line....when I can afford a large format camera .
I must admit though that I am still exploring that site in more detail.
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@cardiff_gareth is in your neck of the woods and is doing a photo course. Hopefully he'll pop in and possibly be able to help.
 
I am lucky that my town not only has a big darkroom, but also runs classes twice a week to help people learn to do developing and enlarging. Hopefully its not a dying art, as the owner of the room has said that the membership numbers are really increasing. I hope you manage to find somewhere as it's such great fun.
 
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There's a darkroom facilty associated with the Arts Centre on the Aberystwyth University campus that runs extra-mural access sessions. That's 100 miles from you, but I quote it as an example of something you could look for locally - I don't know if it's a one-off, or something that's more widespread.
 
Aside from a day in a darkroom when I was about 10, I'd not been in a darkroom at all until I put mine together in my loft. Even now I'm still learning mostly from youtube videos from the likes of Roger on ShootFilmLikeABoss. He's well worth a follow and a going over of some of his older videos that demonstrate a lot of what you need to know.
 
You've got darkrooms for hire along with workshops not far away in Bristol:

The Real Photographic Company

Unless journey times have changed drastically over the last couple of years it used to take me about 45 mins to get to centre of Cardiff from Bristol. Then again there might be more speed cameras around now......
 
Sorry late to the party! I did quickly see this on my phone yesterday but think I've pulled a hernia so it wasn't on my top of the list things to do lol!

I'm doing my BA Hons in Photography at the Atrium campus for University of South Wales. They have a darkroom there for students but with Covid we couldn't use it in year 1 so hears hoping year 2 we gain access to it. I would also suggest Ffotogallery and I think, and I could be wrong, Express Imaging on City Road was looking to get a darkroom up and running also but that wouldn't be training, more book your slot and off you go!
 
cardiff_gareth said:
Sorry late to the party! I did quickly see this on my phone yesterday but think I've pulled a hernia so it wasn't on my top of the list things to do lol!

I'm doing my BA Hons in Photography at the Atrium campus for University of South Wales. They have a darkroom there for students but with Covid we couldn't use it in year 1 so hears hoping year 2 we gain access to it. I would also suggest Ffotogallery and I think, and I could be wrong, Express Imaging on City Road was looking to get a darkroom up and running also but that wouldn't be training, more book your slot and off you go!
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Yeah, I spoke to Daveat Express Imaging a couple of weekends ago. He mentioned that it may become a possibility but it isn't at that stage yet....I will watch that space.
I hope you manage to get into the University darkroom in year 2.
 
Yashica FX3 said:
Hi all. Still finding my way around the forum so apologies if I keep posting in the wrong place.
I have only just taught myself (with the help of lots of instructional videos and wider reading) to develop my own black and white 35mm film. I now want to learn some Darkroom skills. I have been amazed by how difficult it has been to source any courses or a mentor who could teach me in my immediate area...even being told by a local camera club that they don't teach this any more.
Is it really that much of a dying art?? One kind person offered to help but has not printed for my years and is a 2 hour drive away from me. I really have been surprised at how difficult it has been to find some guidance or courses.
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The fewer mistakes you make when you expose and process your negatives, the less art (ificial) manipulation you need to employ when printing. Not much different than digital, actually - if you know how to operate your camera, there's little need for all the post processing software that so many seem to think is necessary.
 
Winslowe said:
The fewer mistakes you make when you expose and process your negatives, the less art (ificial) manipulation you need to employ when printing. Not much different than digital, actually - if you know how to operate your camera, there's little need for all the post processing software that so many seem to think is necessary.
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fine quality printing always involves manipulation.
What I would find scary to day is the price of materials. especially printing paper. I used to buy it by the case not the pack.
 
Yashica FX3 said:
I really have been surprised at how difficult it has been to find some guidance or courses.
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Basic printing is actually quite easy, if you follow the simple rules carefully. I used to turn out 20 to 30 prints an hour with a very simple setup. First the basics...
  1. Your darkroom has to be light tight. Not nearly but totally. Once you're sure you've got it right...
    1. turn out the lights
    2. get a sheet of paper out to the box
    3. put the paper on the enlarger baseboard
    4. put a coin on the paper
    5. count slowly to 300
    6. develop the sheet to finality (at least three minutes)
    7. look at it very hard and see if there's a lighter circle where you left the coin
  2. If there's no circle visible, switch on the safe light and repeat the experiment. No circle means your darkroom and safelight are ok. Now you can start to print...
  3. The key to consistently decent prints is: always develop to finality! If the instructions on your print developer advise developing for 2 minutes, develop for at least 2 minutes every time.
  4. Getting exposure right is a skill that comes with experience. To begin with, though, you'll need to go the long way around. This means test strips. The crude way is...
    1. cut some 10x8 paper into 5, 10 inch long strips
    2. decide on the most important area of your shot
    3. stop down the lens by a couple of stops
    4. place the strip so that as much of it as possible will be covered by that bit of the negative
    5. cover the strip with a piece of card
    6. switch on the enlarger and expose the top end of the paper for (say) 5 seconds
    7. move the card so that another part of the paper is uncovered and repeat the chosen exposure
    8. repeat 7 until you run out of paper
    9. develop the strip (need I say again: to finality)
    10. Assess which of the exposures is closest to what you want.
    11. (there's another explanation of this here: https://www.ilfordphoto.com/exposure-testing/
  5. If you can find one, the Kodak Enlarging Exposure Scale will make test prints on a 5x4 piece of paper with a single 60 second exposure. I used one for years.
  6. There's a modern copy of the Kodak scale here: https://www.firstcall-photographic....rinter-print-projection-calculator-scale/p890
  7. Once you've decided on your starting exposure: make your first print to that exposure and (you've guessed it) develop to finality.
Although the above is very much the basics, it covers the critical parts of making prints that should please you. From there, you'll be able to grow your own skills to meet your own needs.
 
Online Photography (on YouTube) last month had a feature on Robin Bell the master printer, very interesting. They have another channel, I think called MC2, which has an extended version of the feature.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
fine quality printing always involves manipulation.
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Doesn't it depend upon how good the negative is? Of course, it's much easier to manipulate a print than it is to produce a negative that will print straight, but certainly the latter is doable.
 
Winslowe said:
Doesn't it depend upon how good the negative is?
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There is a big difference between "doable" and making "fine quality prints".

For a high quality print you want the best negative possible, which will usually print "well enough" without any manipulation, but making a print is a key part of the creative process and I don't think, I've ever seen a negative (or digital file) that didn't benefit from some manipulation at the printing stage.

What "I" don't want to do is waste "manipulating time" recovering a poor negative (or digital file), before I can begin thinking about how I want the final print to look, but a good negative doesn't mean there is no need for some manipulation.

But manipulation doesn't have to mean artificial (referring to your earlier post), for many its about realism, as you are manipulating the image to better represent what you actually saw and felt at the time you pressed the shutter.
 
myotis said:
There is a big difference between "doable" and making "fine quality prints".

For a high quality print you want the best negative possible, which will usually print "well enough" without any manipulation, but making a print is a key part of the creative process and I don't think, I've ever seen a negative (or digital file) that didn't benefit from some manipulation at the printing stage.

What "I" don't want to do is waste "manipulating time" recovering a poor negative (or digital file), before I can begin thinking about how I want the final print to look, but a good negative doesn't mean there is no need for some manipulation.

But manipulation doesn't have to mean artificial (referring to your earlier post), for many its about realism, as you are manipulating the image to better represent what you actually saw and felt at the time you pressed the shutter.
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Your opinion is valid.
 
It might be useful to draw a distinction between what might be called "artistic" and "commercial" printing.

I definitely fall into the latter camp. I once worked out that I've made something like 150,000 bromide prints, mostly during the twenty years when I was freelancing in press and commercial markets. All were done using an enlarger and trays or slots (I've never had more than a passing aquaintance with an integrated print processor).

At that volume, all you're interested in is getting something that will please the customer, be they an editor, a bride or Mr Smith in the Soft Furnishings Department. This gives a very different shade to your opinion of what is good, compared with someone who makes one print a day for exhibition.

I'm not making any claims on behalf of either side, just pointing out that different people have different experience and thus will offer different advice, something that newcomers need to take into account.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
It might be useful to draw a distinction between what might be called "artistic" and "commercial" printing.
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Good point, but in the days when I did "proofs to reception" black and white prints, we still burned and dodged pretty well every print to make sure there was detail burned into the brides dress and some detail was retained in the grooms suit etc. And that was in addition to custom developing the films depending on lighting, a bit extra for dull days and a bit less for sunny days.

One of us printed and another person batch processed the prints through the trays and a third looked after the washing and feeding prints through the glazer (for anyone that remembers such things).

One we moved to colour we had a Durst "mini printer" I think it was called, that you sat at and prints spewed out of it automatically, all you needed to do was feed the negs through, adjust the crop and manually add a bit of exposure compensation (sometimes colour compensation) before pressing the button to expose the paper and moving onto the next neg.

And even prints being made to meet press deadlines (when we made the prints rather than sending unprocessed film to the papers) still always got a quick bit of dodging and burning.

None the less, I agree, there is still a big difference between standard bulk/rapid turn around commercial printing and expressionistic printing where it might take weeks to finalise a print.
 
I used to live for black and white printing when I was at Uni. Wish I could remember the name of the guy that came and taught me the dual exposure technique. That accelerated my progress in printing so much. Loved it.
 
Damian Brown said:
I used to live for black and white printing when I was at Uni. Wish I could remember the name of the guy that came and taught me the dual exposure technique. That accelerated my progress in printing so much. Loved it.
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You see, this is what I want...just someone to teach me some techniques to make some progress....even just the basics :)
 
myotis said:
And even prints being made to meet press deadlines (when we made the prints rather than sending unprocessed film to the papers) still always got a quick bit of dodging and burning.
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If there was no alternative, of course I'd work the print but I got fairly good at avoiding that with fill flash or whatever.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
If there was no alternative, of course I'd work the print but I got fairly good at avoiding that with fill flash or whatever.
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Indeed, the aim was always (and still is) to minimise the amount of work needed on the print, but there always seemed to something that would benefit from a bit tweaking.
 
Winslowe said:
Doesn't it depend upon how good the negative is? Of course, it's much easier O manipulate a print than it is to produce a negative that will print straight, but certainly the latter is doable.
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I only ever used straight prints as file proofs. I made 6 whole plate prints of everything and put them in ring binders by category. These had a consecutive neg number To take me directly to the neg. I could find any image within a couple of minutes. No computers those days. Nearly all my work was taken on 5x4. Every neg was in a glassine envelop which was filed in a flapless manilla 12x10 envelope. if it had been printed it would also have a marked up print with a printing guide marked on it. It would also have the customers print order number and date added for each use.
Sounds complicated but it was a very simple system.

All my negatives were good enough to make excellent prints. But as negatives always have a wider brightness range than prints. All prints need manipulation to bring out the best in them.

This is true of digital raw files as well. Both with raw files and with film negative you should
start thinking about how to print them at the taking stage. But a straight print is a rarity.
 
I love working in a darkroom.
I think that it is a shame that today's digital generation don't have the pleasure of seeing a print 'come up' in the developing tray - it still thrills me every time.
I love the satisfaction when a print develops out and I know that I have produced a correcty exposed negative, well developed film and have done good work with the enlarger.
I'm probably well past my 'Best Before' date but I thoroughly enjoy what I do so long may it continue.
 
David_Mug said:
I love working in a darkroom.
I think that it is a shame that today's digital generation don't have the pleasure of seeing a print 'come up' in the developing tray - it still thrills me every time.
I love the satisfaction when a print develops out and I know that I have produced a correcty exposed negative, well developed film and have done good work with the enlarger.
I'm probably well past my 'Best Before' date but I thoroughly enjoy what I do so long may it continue.
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This is exactly why I want to learn darkroom skills. I will get there....
 
Yashica FX3 said:
Hi all. Still finding my way around the forum so apologies if I keep posting in the wrong place.
I have only just taught myself (with the help of lots of instructional videos and wider reading) to develop my own black and white 35mm film. I now want to learn some Darkroom skills. I have been amazed by how difficult it has been to source any courses or a mentor who could teach me in my immediate area...even being told by a local camera club that they don't teach this any more.
Is it really that much of a dying art?? One kind person offered to help but has not printed for my years and is a 2 hour drive away from me. I really have been surprised at how difficult it has been to find some guidance or courses.
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Just ask questions on here.
 
When I started, I had the benefit of spending an evening with our local chemist (from whom I bought my first enlarger and all my film/paper/chemicals until I moved away) who demonstrated enlarging. He was one of the old style chemists who developed and printed himself the films brought in for processing. After that, I was on my own. This won't be of much help to you if you can't find someone :) .

What might help is this book, which is the book I wish had been available when I started: The Elements of Black and White Printing by Carson Graves. It covers more than just the basics.
 
StephenM said:
When I started, I had the benefit of spending an evening with our local chemist (from whom I bought my first enlarger and all my film/paper/chemicals until I moved away) who demonstrated enlarging. He was one of the old style chemists who developed and printed himself the films brought in for processing. After that, I was on my own. This won't be of much help to you if you can't find someone :) .

What might help is this book, which is the book I wish had been available when I started: The Elements of Black and White Printing by Carson Graves. It covers more than just the basics.
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Thanks. I will track down a copy. Much appreciated
 
Another place you might look is the Internet Archive. You'll find A LOT of older, out of copyright books there, and darkroom skills haven't changed much, even if the range of available papers and chemicals has reduced. This would be a good starting point for further hunting (you get half a dozen similar titles at the bottom of the page when you open any book to view):

https://archive.org/details/@cezar_popescu
 
StephenM said:
Another place you might look is the Internet Archive. You'll find A LOT of older, out of copyright books there, and darkroom skills haven't changed much, even if the range of available papers and chemicals has reduced. This would be a good starting point for further hunting (you get half a dozen similar titles at the bottom of the page when you open any book to view):

https://archive.org/details/@cezar_popescu
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Thank you....some useful resources there
 
myotis said:
There is a big difference between "doable" and making "fine quality prints".
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Certainly a "fine quality print" can be produced by straight-printing a proper negative. And certainly producing a proper negative is "doable."
 
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