The dying art of the photographic darkroom...

Thanks for that Liam I found it really interesting.

Last night there was 4 of us in the darkroom at college and 2 of us may have to draw up a rotor for the one enlarger that will do medium format.
 
Thats annoying, we have 2 120 enlargers at cardiff and I have been the only one that has used the darkroom since the start of december.
 
I heard someone talking about this last week I think, great film but very sad.
 
My dads got all his developing stuff and his enlarger sitting unused in our loft, I think the last time that he used it was something like 1989. A few months ago I got it all down with him and all the stuff seems to be there. The only things that seemed to be missing were the set of cibachrome colour filters that he used to use so he could make colour prints using a black and white head and the changing bag. There were actually also two packs of Kodak black and white 10"x8" paper that he'd brought in about 1993 and not ever used, it was a little out of date and fogged a grey colour though.

I am planning on having a go with all the stuff, all it needs is a good clean up and some chems/paper and I should be ready to go, the garage can be easily converted to a darkroom for the wet printing part.
 
Who'd a thunk it, something on the Guardian website it actually liked.

Nice little film, shame it wasn't a lot longer.
 
I enjoyed that.

Thanks Liam :)
 
Oh wow there are some SERIOUS pieces of kit there, no Gnome or Krokus ****! Back in the day most of us could only dream about having a go with anything that good. "An enlarger is JUST a box with a light in it". Yea right, like a camera is just a thing holding your lens, shutter and film together!
In the end quality pays.

Whatever happened to D163?
 
That was pretty interesting. Never had a go with darkroom kit myself. My dad got rid of his when I was too young to be interested and the only time I've seen one since was in a charity shop in Sheffield. What seemed to be a full set of stuff was going for about £20. It took a lot of self control not to take the lot. Eventually I had to concede that I didn't have the space to use it and therefore it wasn't worth carrying the whole lot around with me for several hours then trying to get it home on the train without dropping or breaking anything.
 
I for one am not sad to see the back of the darkroom... Fingers stinking, having nasty smelling stop bath.... and contantly drying and faffing around with wet chemicals to produce the same thing I do now at the press of a button. Nostalgia aint what it used to be....:)
 
Interesting article, was wondering how he lit them.
I don't miss my darkroom for commercial work one bit, but really miss spending a day doing a 20"x24" fibre based print.
I'm fighting hard (and loosing) not to set one up again, what with the price of Devere's at peanuts compared to what they used to be.

Drum scanning is perfect, but it's a sterile part of the image process for me.
 
we11ingon said:
I for one am not sad to see the back of the darkroom... Fingers stinking, having nasty smelling stop bath.... and contantly drying and faffing around with wet chemicals to produce the same thing I do now at the press of a button. Nostalgia aint what it used to be....:)
Click to expand...

I'm back in the darkroom after a 20 year break, and I love it! For interest I've printed a neg on Multigrade FB and sent a scan of the same neg away to Illford for them to digitally print it on silver gelatin photographic paper. The quality of the darkroom print wins by a country mile. However, I'm glad I don't have to do everything photographically in the darkroom.
 
I Built a Darkroom in a small cupboard in my parents flat. I'm 23,i dont have the nostalgia like those who were forced to use the darkroom to print everything back in the Film days. I love my Darkroom,I can print right up to 6x7(120) and colour,but i havent learned that just yet. It cost me £200 in total to build it, im trying to get a few of my photography friends back into shooting film. Last time they did it was college,but im failing. Great Video,It really made me think...Now back to my Darkroom :p
 
Make sure you buy anything ilford before the price rise at the start of February! I just bought a box of 8x10 paper :D
 
we11ingon said:
I for one am not sad to see the back of the darkroom... Fingers stinking, having nasty smelling stop bath.... and contantly drying and faffing around with wet chemicals to produce the same thing I do now at the press of a button. Nostalgia aint what it used to be....:)
Click to expand...

Ahh that brings back memories, I always hated the smell of the fixer :puke:

I remember I once put the negative (once developed) in the enlarger the wrong way on a photo of an ancient bridge took me ages to fathem why it looked wrong.

There is something special about watching that image slowly appear when you expose your photo paper and pop it in the developed dish and swish it back and forth (y)
 
I think that there is still a place for both! I use digital for all my commercial paid work, and film for my more arty personal projects. I view them simply as different mediums.

Plus I use a Medium format camera for my film work which is a great format to work with - and I can't yet afford a medium format digital camera!!
 
Thanks for that, really interesting.

There isn't many more gratifying things than producing a top print! Saying that, colour printing looks bloody daunting!
 
We have some equipment at college, but I think they prep it for use once a year now - such is the amount people actually use it. It's a shame really, I'd love to have a go some time, but they do it in the summer when the students are either finished, or too bogged down with work to bother!
 
Hmm, that's the reason I joined this forum... the old medium-format Durst enlarger I just cleaned up.
I was wondering if there's anyone out there who still uses them!
I asked in a local photography shop and the guy said no, only photography students. :shrug:

I figured once I might get back to all that, but its not looking very likely now :(
 
I'm currently setting up a darkroom after a 10 year break, bought a De Vere 507 and can't wait to get up and running again.
Shooting black and white and then scanning it just doesn't do it for me, the whole process from start to finish needs to be done traditionally.
Traditional b/w printing still has the edge on anything digital, the blacks just look better.
Matt from AG was showing me the prints done for a black and white magazine, digital v traditional (can't remember the name of it). Whoever printed the digital version needs a trip to specsavers.
 
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I have also set up a darkroom again, I had one back back in 1989 and started again after using the darkroom at college.

I have got all my equipment from what use to be freecycle and now called freegle and put up a wanted darkroom equipment in the areas close to me
I had so many people get back to me I had to put a day aside and make an appointment system to go round and pick all the stuff up.
Ok you get some rubbish and some stuff thats needs a good clean, but I have
kitted out a complete darkroom, now even with heated shelfs in the wet area.
 
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