 |
|
 |
Article & Images by Chris Groenhout.© 2006.
Visit Chris' Website.
It seems, in this age of high quality
digital scanning and output, that the days of the chemical darkroom
are over. I’ll admit, it’s five years since I’ve
shot a B&W roll of film for a client - there’s just
no demand anymore. Yet now, more than ever, the traditional
darkroom has found its niche as the true photographic artists’
sanctuary. Nothing can replace the excitement of watching your
first print appear in the developer tray, or the control offered
by ones’ choice of developer, dilution and time when processing
film. And while digital methods (even cameras) can approximate
a black and white photograph (and offer some definite advantages
in terms of retouching and tonal control), there is no substitute
for the intangible and subtle quality offered by the conventional
silver gelatin B&W print.
Processing and printing your own black and white photographs
is not only easy, but also very satisfying. While it is possible
to set up a temporary darkroom in a bathroom or even kitchen,
for reasons of health and safety, I don’t recommend this.
No matter how fastidious you are will chemical spillages, you
can never be sure that you’ve cleaned it all up and around
food, you have to be especially careful! Black and white chemicals
are not as dangerous as some colour chemicals, but this should
not be a justification for carelessness. Years ago, Ilford published
a warning to users of Ilfospeed developer that it could affect
the sperm-count of male users - whether or not this decreased
or indeed increased sales of the product is not known! But as
a general rule, treat all chemicals as if they’re poison,
clean up spills, wash hands and always mix powdered chemistry
outside or in a well ventilated place.
Now that I’ve scared you, here’s a step by step rundown
of the making of a simple home darkroom...
(1) Find a suitable space. As previously mentioned, bathrooms
are not recommended, but at a stretch and with care, can be
used as a temporary darkroom. My current darkroom is housed
in a small laundry situated outside my apartment. Unused for
years, I emptied, cleaned and painted the room and it serves
the purpose quite nicely. Sheds are also a good option though
making them light-tight can be tricky if their roof has no ceiling.
Look for a space preferably with running water, electricity
and a minimum of natural light. This may seem obvious, but I’ve
seen friends try to set up darkrooms with none of the above
and the frustration of it all made their life hell!
(2) Light-proof the room. Start by blocking out any window(s)
with two layers of heavy black garden plastic. In situations
where the room is multi-purpose, stretch the plastic over a
wooden frame which hooks over the window while the darkroom
is in use. With the window darkened, close the door and have
a look where light leaks around it. Felt draught exclusion strips
are great for small cracks, but larger gaps need either a strip
of wood nailed around or a flap of black card which overlaps
the edge of the door to prevent stray light. A plastic or fabric
curtain covering the door is another option but can be more
of a nuisance when moving in and out of the room with trays
or equipment. The inevitable light leak along the bottom of
the door could be more difficult to solve - try a pivoting draught
exclusion strip or as a temporary measure, a carpet snake! To
test for effectiveness, go in on a bright sunny day, close the
door and wait 5 minutes. This will give you an idea of the smaller
cracks and crevices which need attention. Attend to this now,
and you won’t stress out in situations like you’re
loading high-speed film into the processing tank and you can
actually see what you’re hands are doing! If it’s
all too impossible, maybe you’ve got a darkroom that can
only be used at night, and if that’s when you’re most
likely to have the time to process and print, this might be
fine.
(3) Clean and paint the room. Using a brush or sandpaper,
remove all loose material from the walls and seal with an appropriate
paint. Despite anything you’ve heard - white is the best
colour for a darkroom. If you’re worried about light bouncing
around - eliminate the source as the benefits from having white
walls outweighs any time spent blocking light spills. Another
coat of sealant which can be wiped clean is worth consideration
as chemical spills will generally dry brown and be quite visible.
Also clean everything thoroughly - it can’t hurt!
(4) Allocate ‘Wet’ and ‘Dry’ areas.
Obvious as it seems, this is one of the earliest and most important
decisions you can make. Chemical contamination of unexposed
paper and splashes from the print washer reaching mains electricity
can not only be frustrating but dangerous. If possible, make
your ‘wet’ area near your supply of running water
and the ‘dry’ area near the electricity outlet (though
not as essential as the location of your plumbing). Your ‘wet’
area is for all storing and mixing of chemicals, tank and tray
processing and the washing of equipment. The ‘dry’
area is for your enlarger, storage of photographic paper and
equipment ready for use such as developing tanks. Maybe also
hang a couple of old towels on the back of the door so you always
have dry hands when loading film into reels and printing.
(5) Provide some Ventilation.
This is a difficult one but worthy of some consideration.
Ideally, a light-proof extraction fan above the ‘wet’
area should be installed, but this is expensive and often
impractical. One suggestion is to utilise a range-hood extraction
fan to remove any chemical fumes. These can be obtained quite
cheaply from a building supply warehouse and are simple to
install as well as easy to light-proof. Conventional extraction
fans (such as used in bathrooms) are even cheaper and can
be installed into a ceiling above your ‘wet’ area
so long as there’s no stray light from skylights etc.
Be careful when dealing with chemical fumes - nasty symptoms
can creep up on you, sometimes days after a printing session!
(6) Make some bench space. Firstly you’ll need
a bench, or ideally a sink to accommodate three or more trays
with which to process your exposed photographic paper. If you
only intend to produce 8x10 inch prints, something as small
as 30x12 inches could suffice, though in practice, a larger
area is always preferable. As a general rule, it’s best
to use trays one size larger than the maximum intended print
size (eg. 11x14 trays for 8x10 prints) for reasons of processing
consistency and ease of use. If you’re careful with spills,
a laminated bench is an adequate work area - just don’t
overfill trays and clean up any spills as they happen.
A ‘dry’ bench needs to support the enlarger and
provide space for the timer, paper and negatives as well. Keep
this area as clean and dry as possible and you’ll be rewarded
with dust-free and predictable results. Often forgotten, but
always essential is storage space for paper, scissors, thermometer
etc... A couple shelves above the enlarger and a few draws below
should suffice.
(7) Organise washing and drying facilities. Water quality
can make or break the best of darkrooms, so it’s important
to maximise what resources you have at hand. While a supply
of hot water is not essential, clean, cold water is necessary
for mixing chemicals as well as washing film and prints. As
a test, put a tray under the tap and run it for 15 minutes.
If there are any particles at the bottom of the tray, you need
a water filter. Even if there isn’t any evidence of residue,
a water filter is as useful as a surge filter on a computer
system. A cheap solution is a filter used for in-ground garden
watering. Wrap a few layers of stocking around the centre element
to catch the fine fragments before they get to your precious
emulsion. A clip-on tap filter (about $2 from grocers) is also
quite effective, though be sure to change it regularly to maintain
effectiveness.
Properly washing prints
is an art in itself and can require a little forethought. On
the simplest level, running water in a tray can work if it enters
at one end and exits at the other. Otherwise it just circulates
the chemicals and does little or no washing. Sophisticated wash
systems are an elaboration on this theme and can be home-made
with a length of plastic tubing and a modified processing tray.
Patterson water siphons are also quite effective as they clip
onto the side of the tray and fill / empty it cyclically to
reduce chemical residue. The rule here is - don’t spend
a lot of money - experiment with what you have and if it doesn’t
work, use some home-grown ingenuity!
As with washing, drying depends on cleanliness of a different
nature. Essentially the longer it takes for the film to dry,
the greater the chance of dust settling on the surface. So a
cabinet with a filtered supply of warm air is ideal. This also
protects the film from chemical splashes and can be used to
dry processing reels and warm the darkroom in cold weather.
For this purpose I’ve utilised a vertical clothes drying
cabinet ($15 from an op-shop) which has fan-forced air of varying
temperatures. It doubles as a print drying cabinet and wet tanks
and reels sit on the top after use (they tend to melt inside).
An option to this is a fan-heater located inside a home-made
cupboard, but make sure there’s some vents to allow air
in and out or you might have a fire on your hands!
(8) Set up a Safelight. This may appear easier than it
really is, as its installation is always a compromise between
the potential fogging of paper and darkroom’s ease of use.
With modern, multigrade papers, the correct colour of safelight
is more important than ever, so be sure to check the bulb /
filter with the paper you’re planning to use. This can
be done when your darkroom is up and running by placing a coin
on a blank sheet of photographic paper and leaving it illuminated
by safelight for 10 minutes or so. If the coin’s outline
appears once processed, you might have a problem. Bouncing the
light off the ceiling will reduce potential harm to paper and
evenly spread the light throughout the darkroom. This will also
minimise shadows and reduce the need for multiple safelights.
If you’re still having problems, reduce the globe’s
wattage to 25W or as a last resort, use a red rather than traditional
amber filter in the safelight enclosure.
(9) Choose an enlarger. While this choice may be made
for you (hand-me-down from a family member or whatever), there
are a few things to consider...
- Maximum print size - don’t assume you’ll only ever
print 8x10 inch prints as it’ll limit your possibilities
if you ever need to enlarge a smaller portion of a negative
or print that ‘all-important’ family photo for Aunty
Marge!
- Maximum negative size - 35mm might be OK for now, but if you
borrow a medium format camera or offer to print some old family
photos, 120 format capability is very useful. Also, 35mm-only
enlargers tend to be pretty crappy in both design and construction,
so a little extra money spent is often worth it.
- Condenser vs Diffuser. For the uninitiated, most B&W enlargers
are of the condenser variety which means that the light is evenly
spread across the negative by a large chunk of glass with a
big curve in it. Diffuser enlargers tend to be designed for
printing colour negatives and transparencies, though they make
excellent B&W enlargers as well. It all depends on the type
of images you’re printing - Condenser is great for graphic,
sharp and contrasty images requiring maximum sharpness and definition.
This is not to say that Diffuser enlargers are ‘soft’,
but they tend to be more appropriate for printing portraits
and images with subtle shadow detail. If you can afford a colour
enlarger - I’d recommend it as the colour filtration controls
can also be used to adjust the contrast when using multigrade
papers and, who knows, maybe one day you’ll try a little
colour printing as well! To match your negatives to the lower
contrast of a Diffuser enlarger, a small increase in your development
time might also be necessary.
- Enlarger brand. There are a large number of well designed
and manufactured enlargers on the market, so it’s no easy
task to choose one, even given the options outlined above. As
a rough guide - it’s got to be common enough to obtain
parts and accessories easily and well made so as not to disintegrate
on the first print you attempt. Reputable brands include LPL,
Durst and Bessler though there are heaps more and the enlarger
you end up buying is as personal a choice as buying a car (though
hopefully a little cheaper). Check that it’s got a standard
lens mount, an option for a glassless negative carrier and that
globes are affordable and easily obtained in your area. And
like a new car, you get what you pay for...
- Enlarger lenses are probably more important than your choice
of enlarger as they directly affect the optical quality of the
final print. What brand of optic you choose is as much taste
as your ability to finance the purchase but you generally can’t
go wrong with Nikon, Rodenstock and Schneider lenses. Buy a
lens that matches the standard lens of the format you’ll
be printing - eg. 80mm lens for 6x6 or 50mm lens for 35mm. You
can always use a longer lens for a smaller format but your prints
will be smaller.
- Enlarger timers are neither cheap nor easy to obtain second-hand.
Given this, there are a bewildering assortment available for
purchase new, and any number of accessories to go with them.
Don’t waste your money - a simple timer with 0-60 seconds
and a provision for focussing the enlarger is fine. Digital
accuracy to 0.1 second is rarely necessary (you can always stop-down
to increase the exposure time) and gadgets such as meters are
generally only necessary in commercial darkrooms.
- Easels and focus-scopes are often forgotten in the rush to
buy the enlarger and lens and they are just as important in
the production of the final print. In the same way as timers
can drain your bank-balance, both easels and focus-scopes can
be either expensive or VERY EXPENSIVE! As always, best to buy
something well made and easy to use (I use LPL products for
both) and upgrade when and if you win the lottery!
(10) Start Processing and Printing! Of course don’t
forget all the other bits and pieces you’re going to need...
- - processing tank(s)
- - scissors
- - wall timer
- - thermometer
- - trays
- - tongs
- - measuring jugs
- - proofing frames or just
glass
- - burning in / dodging tools
- - towels
- - squeegee for fibre prints
- - I’m sure you’ll
think of more stuff as the need arises!
Good luck!
|
|
|
|
