Do you miss your darkroom?

For all us who had darkrooms, do you ever miss them? I had a really nice darkroom, who thanks to photoshop has been turned into a woodshop. I processed 30 rolls of B & W at a time in a 3 gallon tank of D-76, and replenished regularly. I had 3 enlargers, 2 beseler (Ithink they were 23Cs) enlargers, one with a color head and one with a cold light head for B & W. I also had a 4 X 5 enlarger, I wanna say a Omega but not sure, remember it has a electric lift that moves the head up and down the column, with of course, a cold light head, for B&W prints made on fiber based paper. My darkroom was also equipped with a roller transport color processor that could make prints up to 11 X 14, and of course a jobo film processor for processing color E-6 when I needed to run a clip test for pushing or pulling my ektachrome film. Now I know there are many photographers reading this post are totally lost, I'm sure many are beginning to remember the smell of fresh stop bath and fixer.
I think that digital photographers today really missed something by not cutting their teeth in a darkroom to produce their images. There is something magical about a darkroom. There is nothing in the digital world that compare to the feeling we would get running home to process our film, washing it,(of course just a rinse first and anxiously looking at the negative to see that "one" image you took, to see if you held the shadows, and did not blow out your highlights) drying it, loading it in your contact printer, exposing it, dropping it into the developer and seeing it magically appear over that 90 second period. Then into the stop bath for 15-30 seconds, then the dual 5 minute each fixer baths, and the 1 hour wash in your Calumet print washer. Then of course you pulled them out and laid them in your drying screens. Or if you were a RC type guy you could skip the dual fix bath, and go thru rapid fixer, wash for 5 minutes, and run it thru your Arkay print dryer or stand them up against the wall to dry, or some other arcain method of drying. For some reason that image had a lot more meaning and had a lot more pride when you showed it to someone that a epson print does now a days.
Now that the young guns are thinking what is this old fart talking about, reliving the past, the old I had to walk 5 miles to school deal. Well, I think digital photography has made a huge leap in producing images of higher quality with greater speed and ease.
But for me, I think a lot of the craftsmanship of photography died with the first digital camera. Now we simply shoot, look at a LCD see if the histogram shows a proper exposure, and enlarge it and check for focus if we are not too lazy. If there is something in the photograph that won't move in the next 30 seconds we go ahead and shoot it and take it out in photoshop. Today we have the luxury of unlimited images for free, opposed to 36exp rolls that cost us money each time we took a photo. Today there are photographers (many many on this board) that produce incredible images and are just as masterful with photoshop as we were with our darkrooms. I am not denying that. I also have slaved over a single digital image in photoshop, adding layer after layer to the image. Making tiny adjustments, removing imperfections.
Just somedays I really miss my darkroom, do you?
Yes call me a "Old Fart", I'm 54. But as Ronald Reagan once said "" I will not take advantage of my opponents youth and inexperience".
I loved the smell of Stop Bath in the morning, do you miss it?

Do I miss the darkroom? In a word, no. I loved the darkroom but I love digital even more. I still have all my old darkroom gear and could set it up again if I cleared the junk out of one of my sheds.

Craftsmanship didn't die with digital cameras in my opinion it has just gone in a different direction. I think we are yet to see just how far it might go.

BTW your 4x5 enlarger is probably a Beseler, the Omegas and Chromegas were all manual, no electric lifts as far as I know. I still have my 4x5 Beseler, the motor went bad towards the end of it's useful life. My ghetto solution was a cordless drill and a socket that fit the micro adjust for lifting it up and down.

For some reason my darkroom was also my "getta way" place. You could also go in there and do what ya wanted, and if someone wanted to enter your sacred place, you could always yell out, "I'm in the dark", and they knew not to open the door, or they would get there ass kicked.
My office with photoshop up does not seem to have the same feeling......and I "can" be bothered by everyone.....LOL

Don't miss the darkroom at all. All processing now can be done free of all those chemical smells, in a nice light and airy environment, and with a cup of tea to hand any time I fancy getting up to make one.

no1photo wrote in post #10636952
For some reason my darkroom was also my "getta way" place. You could also go in there and do what ya wanted, and if someone wanted to enter your sacred place, you could always yell out, "I'm in the dark", and they knew not to open the door, or they would get there ass kicked.
My office with photoshop up does not seem to have the same feeling......and I "can" be bothered by everyone.....LOL

Oh man, brings back memories. I worked for a short time in a studio owned by one of "those" professionals. I was in the darkroom with a dozen rolls of 120 film hovering over the 3 1/2 gallon tank when another guy who worked there opened the door and flipped on the light. Then had the nerve to blame me. It's been over 30 years now and I still want to kick his butt.

This same guy's idea of agitation was to sit on a stool in front of the sink and give it good kick every minute or so. Dang, no wonder it leaked.

Even though I still have my darkroom equipment I don't really miss having chemicals burn holes in my clothing and having to make a room light tight and stumbling and fumbling around in what is supposedly total darkness and having to be dang near married to a timer for correct exposures and dodging and burning to bring out underexposed or over exposed images. And even with a stabilized power source any line issues translate into a screwed up photo. And color printing was even more of a hassle. Nope I don't miss the old technique at all when it is compared to the digital process, Would I use a darkroom if film were widely available? most likely yes! I learned a lot with the "analog" version of processing film and seeing what you took only after the fact made you much more selective with what you took images of.

Joe Ravenstein wrote in post #10637134
Even though I still have my darkroom equipment I don't really miss having chemicals burn holes in my clothing and having to make a room light tight and stumbling and fumbling around in what is supposedly total darkness and having to be dang near married to a timer for correct exposures and dodging and burning to bring out underexposed or over exposed images. And even with a stabilized power source any line issues translate into a screwed up photo. And color printing was even more of a hassle. Nope I don't miss the old technique at all when it is compared to the digital process, Would I use a darkroom if film were widely available? most likely yes! I learned a lot with the "analog" version of processing film and seeing what you took only after the fact made you much more selective with what you took images of.

I'm with you. Proccessing color slides almost killed me. had an alergic reaction to the chemical that closed my throat. Didn't get back in the darkroom after that.

I spent 3 years as an assistant. We did a lot of b&w work for major upscale department stores so outside my usual shooting duties I spent A LOT of time in the darkroom. I also had one at home for a good number of years.
In all those years, watching the image come up in the developer never ceased to amaze me.

But all the mess, the chemicals, the infrastructure needed....no I don't miss it.
Digital is a dream...but not without its own set of headaches with all the color management and workflow crapola. You need to be an Einstein just to understand it.

I'm one of those "gew up with digital people" who still wants her own darkroom. Thankfully, my college believed that you need to learn traditional photography before you go on to digital.

I spent a ton of time in the school darkroom - both for classes and for my personal projects. I still prefer silver based photography for my art work, but I've transitioned into cyanotypes in the absence of a darkroom of my own. Now, if we're talking color photography, ewww - digital is the way to go for me.

I also started with digital. I took a B&W Film Class at a local community college (by mistake, not mine but the college's) and after that was hooked. When I worked on getting a degree I also had to work in the darkroom quite a bit and really enjoyed it.

I never had one at home though I have all of the supplies to do it except for chemicals. Maybe one day I will set something up. I am thankful for the 2 1/2 years that I worked in the darkroom though, with out that experience I do not think I would perceive photography the same way that I do now.

Actually I could quite happily go back to developing slide film, as you don't need a darkroom to do that, and there's no messing about with enlargers making prints. What comes out of the developing tank is the finished article that just needs cutting up and putting in mounts.

I do and I don't. I could never get the kind of control I get by todays digital methods and printing in a darkroom while often exciting is tedious to some degree. The print cycle is at least 5 minutes and inevitably it takes at least 1-3 days to really achieve a master print and then it must be repeatable. Of course there are some printers who devised rather clever means for producing a repeatable print such as producing a perfect (dodged and burned) negative and sharpened with masks as such but again the amount of time in producing such prints and attaining a high standard is significant. You have to really like dealing with the chemistry and living in no or low light levels for hours on end.

I had a very nice laser leveled Zone VI 5x7 enlarger with variable contrast cold light head. A magnificent enlarger. In one garage I had a nice sink installed. None of this is necessary for digital prints from scanned film and / or direct digital files.

I am thinking about getting the 4 X 5 out and shooting some, like the therapy it gives me. Something about the process of shooting with a view camera cannot be matched. I have a scanner than can scan 4 X 5 images and does a good job of it, just takes a looooong time.
God, I have gained a lot of weight since I went digital, I know its all the darkroom that sure burned off calories...LOL

I enjoyed the darkroom work and had a blast. It is certainly an experience that fewer people today are able to enjoy.

One of the happiest times I've ever had as a high schooler was spent in the darkroom my brother and I built in our own garage. I loved the smell of film chemicals the first thing in the morning....