Darkroom portraits

[bdial]

Lenswork Extended had a tour of Edwards darkroom, it's remarkable in its simplicity.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Weston's darkroom is pretty amazing. People don't talk too much about that retouching stand, probably because they don't know what it is. It's interesting that he evidently thought it was more important to have a retouching stand than, say, an enlarger, or even a fancier light source. I wonder how much he used it for its intended purpose.

[Deckled Edge]

I own, and regularly use, an identical Eastman Retouching Stand. A mirror directs light from underneath the negative, and, when combined with a 5x magnifying lens on a stalk, shows all the dust spots and "Efke character areas" that need SpotTone. I tried it with a kerosene lamp once, but that was hopeless. I suspect Edward did his spotting with daylight from a nearby window.
Weston made his money doing portraits, so he was probably doing a great deal of retouching, not just spotting. I'll bet he used the stand a great deal.

[Kevin Caulfield]

Here are some snaps of my new dedicated darkroom. Sorry the first one is sideways. That shows the door from the outside. The second and fourth ones show the setup for printing. The third one is looking upwards through the door at the baffle below the exhaust fan.

[Jeffrey A. Steinberg]

I just added a Hass Manufacturing computer-controlled mixer. Just love it.

Attached are photos of the wet side (with the Jobo processor on the right) and the Saunders enlarger with the Heiland splitgrade head.

[MattKing]

Jeffrey:

All the high end equipment is great, but I must confess that it was the wall clock that grabbed my attention!

Looks like a great place to create. Thanks for sharing.

Matt

[Jeffrey A. Steinberg]

Jeffrey:

All the high end equipment is great, but I must confess that it was the wall clock that grabbed my attention!

Looks like a great place to create. Thanks for sharing.

Matt

Its the cheapest thing there and it looks the best! Its only something like $20 and from a company called Zelco who have been making for at least 20 years.

Yeah, I love that clock. They give you 12 little sticky-back rubber half balls and you temporarily tape a circle of paper they give you that has arrows on where to put the dots. You put this little sticky back "L" shaped piece in the middle of the paper to hang the light-weight clock movement. Remove the paper, put the clock section on its hanging spot and you have a "wall" clock.

You can get one at Amazon here or any other place.

Just do a search for "Zelco" and "real wall clock" and there are lots of places. Its the second one I had. I just think its so elegant.

Thanks for the complements.

[ic-racer]

I just added a Hass Manufacturing computer-controlled mixer.

I don't know what that is. Is it the nice water temp unit in the first picture?

I have been looking for a temp unit. Can you say anything about this unit. Like does it take batteries, or how is it powered. Was it easy to install or did you need a plumber? How much was it? New or used.

Nice darkroom. Love that 'science-lab' faucet.

[ic-racer]

This is an updated photograph of my darkroom showing my newest piece of equipment. This is a Durst L1840 10x10 enlarger with an Aristo 1414-2 coldlight. Lens is a 300mm Rodenstock f5.6. With this Aristo head, the enlarger will go all the way to the top without hitting the ceiling. It can do about a 4x enlargement of an 8x10 on the baseboard. That would be 40x32" though my print washer is only 20x24"

Here are the initial pictues: http://www.apug.org/forums/437328-post428.html

More info on the enlarger is here:http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=32852

[MurrayMinchin]

My Beseler 45MXT is so, so, so dinky

Murray