My First Darkroom Photograph

[Painthappy]

Roughly a year ago I purchased an enlarger. For those that are not familiar, it is a device with a lens that will shine light through your film negative so you can transfer it onto paper. You Need to develop the paper similarly to the way you develop film.

I ended up making a make-shift dark room out of an indoor greenhouse and made sure to block out all the light. So far it's been working perfectly. After about 6 tries I finally was able to put this to paper



The blacks are still a little too dark in areas so I need to cut the time down, but for my first real go at it with only basic knowledge on even what I'm doing, I'm happy with how it came out.

I realize where my issues are and have some new items coming in to assist me and should be here on Wednesday so I can try this again.

So this was in a film camera, I developed the film and now I put that developed film onto paper. Amazing all the steps that was once needed to put an image onto paper.

[Grendel]

Nice job, as I said before I loved doing dark room work. A journal of settings/timings and results will help you in the long run and performing test sheets where you do multiple exposures on one sheet of the same image with notes about setting is also good practice. Just remember every time you change paper lots and manufacturers you may need different exposures and times in the baths to get the same results. As an example I like Fuji paper if I wanted a picture to look older then it was; it tended to have browner tones instead of stark blacks.

[Painthappy]

Grendel Good to know about the Fuji paper. I like that idea.

[XEMON]

Dam, bring memories back 😅

I can't recommend enough a stack a heavy paper (old/developed paper works great) with a pair of scissors, some tape and a few things wires to make mask on the fly ... Allow you mask some light from some areas in the middle of the exposure. That was you can manage the difference in contrast.

Also, does your enlarger have a color head?

The lens on the enlarger also makes a difference in tone and sharpness...

[Painthappy]

I don't know much about it, I'm using the lens it came with on F8 just as a starting point. There is a section for "color", but I don't know anything about what's going on there.

[XEMON]

Do you have the CMY wheels or do slide the filter before the lens to change the tone? Have a picture of the enlarger's head?

[Grendel]

Photo Retro is not too far from you and they do developing workshops:

Photo Retro
141 State Route 101A
Unit B7 (In the Back)
Amherst, NH 03031

[Painthappy]

Photo Retro is not too far from you and they do developing workshops:

Photo Retro
141 State Route 101A
Unit B7 (In the Back)
Amherst, NH 03031

Actually I have been there and the girl at the place gave me a tour and showed me the dark room and how everything worked, so that was my only basis of knowledge. I had already purchased the enlarger by the time I learned they existed, but for a small fee you can use their equipment and dark room. Pretty neat set up to be honest.

[zinger565]

I love the look of film. Hell, I use specific module in DarkTable (my post-processing software) called Filmic RGB to help mimic the color/tone/contrast of classic film. It also makes the photos from some of my vintage lenses look like they're "supposed" to (in my opinion).

Best of luck to you in this endeavor. I think Mrs Z would kill me, burn the house, and run off with the insurance money if I tried to add another "hobby" to the basement.

[BrickHaus]

Time for a He shed.. its all about compromise.

[Paintslinger16]

I can Almost smell the dark room chemicals from my High school elective class, can’t believe
it was 42 years ago!

[Trbo323]

Man I miss the dark room. Took a few classes at community college before all the upper level classes moved on to digital. I had an absolutely great instructor as well. My community college professor was way better than the well established university professor I later "learned" from.

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[Deerslayer]

I have a bunch of old dark room photog equipment. If you are interested, give me a holler. Evidently I cannot do PM's yet, but as the admin, you should be able to ping me. I also have an Omega B22 XL - 35 mm enlarger that I would love to move to someone who will use it. The lens is basic, better enlargements can be had with good optics.