Does printing make anyone else a nervous wreck?

[Maris]

For me darkroom work is a pleasure. It is the culmination of all the activity that has proceeded it. It's the pay off.

The other stuff, finding subject matter, facing subject matter, lugging cameras, fussing with exposure, handling film, developing negatives is a series of nuisances that have to be endured to get where I want to go: the final gelatin-silver photograph itself.

[Ronald Moravec]

No, all errors are recoverable. Developing film must be perfect, fortunately it is a robot job but does require you to pay attention.

[stillsilver]

one word - bourbon

Mike

[jglass]

one other word - pink floyd

Hmm . . . why say one word when two will suffice.

[nworth]

In answer to your question, no, but it often leaves me tired and lacking in both self confidence and self esteem. One thing I've noticed is that sometimes I come up with a negative that I think will make a good print, but I just can't get a good print from it. A few time after repeated failures I scanned the negative and went the digital route. There were times that this worked, showing that my darkroom technique is not all that it could be. But mostly I found that you just couldn't get a good print from the negative. Sometimes I could even tell why. Some negatives are like that.

[moki]

Not at all... I find working in the darkroom very relaxing, especially when I have spent some time working with digital pictures before. I can do all the photoshoppery I want, but it's a very unpersonal, boring process.
Of course, there is the moment of great tension when turning on the light when the final print is in the washing tray, but that's the best part in my opionion. If it was just about the final result and I didn't love that moment of waiting until the picture appears (an almost magical moment, even if you know that it's just a chemical reaction), I would have ditched analog photography after my first time in the darkroom. It's all about the process from exposing the film, developing it and as final and most important step making the print, seeing it the next day and seeing you did good work.

[rcam72]

As for all the stress that some seem to experience in the darkroom, think about how much stress comes from chiseling marble, as Michaelangelo did.

If I thought about that I'd be tempted to get a piece of marble with which to pummel my enlarger with.

I think my stress is due mainly to the paranoia of doing something wrong eventhough I take forever in making sure that I'm going step by step. I get up to the "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" stage most of the time and occasionally to the "HULK smash" stage, usually because I missed something. The print that finally evokes the "Ha! I'm not an incompetent hack, screw you Ansel Adams and your little dog too" response, will have made the stress worth it though.

-Raul

[ic-racer]

Bob, is it in any way bad to leave a negative in a glass negative carrier in the enlarger for days?

The makers of negative carrier glass would want you to leave a negative in there all the time.

I keep a negative in my 10x10 glass carriers all the time, as the safest place for that carrier is in the enlarger with the glass plates squished together. On the smaller 5x5 glass carriers, I store them vertically off the enlarger and don't keep a negative in them.