I used a darkroom today

for the first time and enjoyed that more than digital. No more.

Learning something new is always fun. Wait 'till you have to wait two days for 60 rolls of slide film to come back.

do your hands still smell of chemicals? (I personally never liked using tongs).

Pretty incredible experience, eh buckeye? What were the circumstances?

CannedHeat wrote in post #7683219
do your hands still smell of chemicals? (I personally never liked using tongs).

Slightly, the instructor was very adamant about using gloves or tongs. She vaguely said how the chemicals would be bad in the long run. But, the tongs were more convenient I thought (even though it was a PITA to pick up the paper).

sapearl wrote in post #7683223
Pretty incredible experience, eh buckeye? What were the circumstances?

It was awesome. I loved being able to shoot something, then go develop it and print it. And I like how the instructor kept on saying to have the times and temps accurate, but mine were off by a little most of the time and the film still developed well. We only printed out a contact sheet yesterday (this is one of my fun classes for my last quarter at OSU). Wednesday we actually do "real" printing. The circumstances were crazy: we had about 20 college students trying to figure out how to develop and print a contact sheet with only one instructor. During the developing process, it was like 20 chickens with their heads cut off.

It's my hope to be able to set up a B&W darkroom and shoot and develop and print my own shots in the future when I live somewhere that has the space for it. The only problem I see is that will continue to be harder to do as time progresses.

The most personal satisfaction I get from photography is via the darkroom. Digital has removed the 'soul' from making a photograph for me. Nothing quite as satisfying as shooting on film, going to the darkroom and spending time on optimizing a single print. Yes, digital is wonderful in making things possible that are very difficult or impossible in the darkroom, but it still is not as personally satisfying! Welcome to a new world of photography.

About 6 months ago I put my Omega enlarger with a custom cold head at the curb. Oh, well. I guess that 'ol wheel keeps turning. As soon as somebody gets off, another gets on.

Last time I did any actual wet darkroom work was 1979. Most of the time it was gratifying..... most notably the B/W work due to the control I had, but got a little frustrating when I got into color printing. Cost was a bit high at that time, filtration w/b was more complicated than my abilities, and I had a lot of trouble maintaining consistent temperature for the color chemistry.

I neatly packed everything into boxes - the Omega D2V-XL & Nikkor lenses, SS reels and cans - hoping against the day I would resume the activity. It never happened.

Two years ago I donated all of this to the local high school's art department. The young lady there was still teaching them the "wet art" and I even managed to get a good price selling her my old Hasselblad 500C.

Wilt, I do miss aspects of the old B/W work; it was almost always rewarding. But let's face it - being shut away in a dim, smelly, claustrophobic basement room does have its dark antisocial side . At least now my wife and anybody else can easily stop into the the computer room for a quick friendly chat when I'm post processing . I am also far more productive than I ever was since there's none of the time lost mixing chemicals and doing cleanup afterwards.

Oh, I don't regret my time spent in the wet world one bit at all. It gave me a solid foundation that many don't have. But today digital enables me to experiment in a way that was cost prohibitive when all I did was film. On a fine art level, I feel that I've produced more "exhibitable" work in the past three years of my new digital career than in the prior three decades. - Stu

Stu, what is wrong with periods of anti-social behavior, if it makes me so much more pleansant when I come out?!

Yes, 0.25 degree color temp control was a chore, but only until I bought a Jobo processor, Gosh, those Cibachromes (later Ilfochromes) were so tremendously, mind bogglingly, grinningly fun to make! I left the grunt work (film processing) to the color labs, since there is no fun to be had in manipulating film (unless you are doing sheet film...and even then it is better left to the labs!)

And then there is the technical satisfaction of cranking out 20 copies of those highly saturated color prints, to participate in 'holiday (Xmas) group photo exchanges', put them side by side and see absolutely no difference at all between any of the prints. Compared to 20 copies of machine prints from the drugstore, where there is considerable shot to shot variation!

Whoah....... if that isn't a setup and a gimme I don't know what is. Please, don't stop doing that darkroom work Wilt .

Wilt wrote in post #7685430
Stu, what is wrong with periods of anti-social behavior, if it makes me so much more pleansant when I come out?! ......!

I loved them & still have some on my walls.

For one at a time I used tongs. For more, I shuffled them with my hands.
Hint: Sometimes, when part of the shot is slow to come up, the heat from the palm of your hand will speed up the process & save making a 2nd exposure.

That was always a helpful trick - sometimes I'd even bring the print close to my face and put some "warm breath" on a particular section to bring it up a little darker/faster .

PhotosGuy wrote in post #7690677
.......Hint: Sometimes, when part of the shot is slow to come up, the heat from the palm of your hand will speed up the process & save making a 2nd exposure.