DARKROOM DAY DREAMS

I have had plenty of time since dismantling the darkroom more than a decade back to mull over the pros and cons of its modern technology replacement.

They are pretty much as you might imagine; faster turnarounds, the convenience of instantly being able to see what you are doing, improved image archive management (though not necessarily the same level of archive permanence.), and of course, speed of delivery to the client. This is without mentioning substantial cost savings on film, paper and chemicals and which in my case, are not substituted with ink or dye sub materials. I simply have no need of them. In a purely objective world, the only prints I need are the ones I have already made in a different technological era.

But.

I miss it.

I miss being able to pull a fine print from the wash. I miss that chemical aroma from the mix of bromide and hypo and the feel between ones fingers of damp heavyweight baryta papers, the simple joy of being able to walk into the light to examine the liquid magic performed on the pure white, high silver content surface of a sheet of paper. I'm sorry, but the only bronzing I can tolerate comes on the gravure printed page of high quality coated papers bound and head and tailed between hard covers.

It is for this reason I kept all the old darkroom machinery and a suitcase full of enlarging lenses. When the opportunity comes around again to set it up, the new darkroom will not be short on kit. I will still be able to blow up those old 5X7 inch glass plates and custom enlarge anything from 16mm to 6X9cms on glassless, condenser type enlargers. Two ancient MPPs and a superbly made Meopta from the 1960s sit quietly swathed in bubble wrap awaiting a new dawn.

And I have recently added one more item to this armoury.

Another Meopta. It's the same model as the one I already own, but it's brand new and still in its original leather strapped Warsaw pact era laundry box. No, I don't need it, but if you are as obsessed about this whole world of photography as I seem to be, you would not have left this fine example of miniature engineering to languish on the floor of a charity shop to be kicked around indefinitely until some well meaning volunteer decided it was time to end its life in a skip. I had to have it.



Of course, any notions I might have of being able to build a new darkroom are influenced constantly by the conveniences offered by its electronic replacement and the plethora of new developments frequently arriving in that sector. By the time I am ready to start stripping off the bubble wrap, I have a feeling someone will bring to market an affordable table top digital print processor capable of issuing stunning quality photo prints of a useful size. I will still not have a need for such a machine, but being able to produce genuine silver based prints with the look and feel of something more closely approximating what I want may be too much of a temptation to resist.


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Copyright; Jonathan Eastland
www.ajaxnetphoto.blogspot.com 2006.
www.ajaxnetphoto.com 2006.
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