[Leica] Yes, Set Up A Darkroom

[msmall at infionline.net (Marc James Small <)]

At 01:30 AM 11/20/04 -0800, Richard wrote:
>The last time I used a real darkroom was when I was in HS doing B&W 
>literally in the apartment's bathroom. I was really happy that a few years 
>ago I got a scanner, inkjet printer and photoshop, and after a couple years 
>of fighting with color management, I am getting decent prints from the 
>system. All these times, setting up a wet darkroom isn't even under 
>consideration because there just isn't enough space in the garage. Last 
>year I got the Jobo CPE-2 and now I am shooting 99% slides, and I scan the 
>slides in with the rest of the workflow pretty much the same as if I start 
>with digital capture
>
>Anyway, our water heater died a few weeks ago, and we replaced it with a 
>tankless on demand system. Meaning that all of a sudden there are some 
>space in the garage!! If nothing else, now I can have the Jobo on its own 
>table and not share it with the tools workbench.
>
>However, I am wondering if I should move another step and get a wet 
>darkroom setup. 

If you don't do darkroom, you're not a photographer.  This will change in
the future but is still the rule.  My darkroom has been in limbo for two
years but, damn!, I miss doing Iflochrome and RA-4 and b&w processing.
Darkroom work is much more of an art than is Photoshop or, perhaps, it is a
totally different art.  

I'm trying to convert to digital and am on the losing end of the power gap,
but I will persevere.  I do miss the pleasure in being able to dodge and
burn (and, no, Photoshop does not come close to what I can do in a chemical
darkroom!) and to pull a print at 80 seconds and to let the next one stay
in to 110 seconds, just to make certain that they are correct.

I grew up on this stuff and I've been dark-rooming for the past forty
years.  It is now obsolescent technology but, if I were you, I'd pick up an
enlarger (you can get them cheap right now, though I bought mine before
digital erupted) and some Rodinal and some of those DARKROOM COOKBOOKS and
the like and go from there.  The sky is the limit and once you understand
the process, in your heart and soul, then perhaps you will be ready for
Photoshop.  What do I know?  I am lost in Photoshop and I am awash in
knowledge and expertise and so forth of the technology of darkroom work.
(I always said that I was damned to be the brightest student of a dead art.
 I said this first when I was learning Latin and Ancient Greek, but it
applies far more today in the quantity of my data banks stocked up on the
chemical processing of film.)  Vae victis, Amici!

Marc



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