Darkroom portraits

[argentic]

The first darkroom you build for an enemy.
The second one you build for a friend.
And the third one you build for yourself.

Until now I have built five darkrooms. But there are still things to improve. And everytime I study other peoples darkrooms, I learn one or two nice tricks.

Would you mind posting some images of your darkroom? I'll start with mine. I use it one day every week. And even after about twenty years of darkroom work, I still want to change things. (That's why I got the idea of this thread.) My desktop is very cluttered because I'm in the middle of a rearranging my darkroom.

1) My darkroom sink. I adapted an existing sink to do all my film developing, and washing. Above the sink chemicals are stored child-safe. I built my own sodium lamp.
2) An Omega D5 XL enlarger for 4x5 inch negatives
3) A Durst M605 enlarger, my darkroom books and negatives.
4) The wet bench with photographic paper to the left, and film tanks underneath.
5) Bulk chemical storage and processing clock.

[arigram]

I was going to wait until I get my web site running to have a detailed description of my darkroom, but here are some quite digi snapshots a friend of mine took. (I am planning to do a "proper" film shoot)

Photo 1 : My Kaiser 6x7 multigrade enlarger and I.
Photo 2 : The "workbench", the Air Conditioner, my handmade drying cabinet
Photo 3 : The chemicals, film tanks and accessories shelves, the enlarger again and my old 2 blade 20x25 frame. Now I have a nice 30x40 4 blade one not seen in any picture.
Photo 4 : The darkroom from the outside, at the roof of the house. Maybe you can spot the ventilation pipes next to the door.
Photo 5 : The wet side with 20x25 trays, water, hanging cords, a big clock, an african mask and framed my very first printed photo (it slipped with the humidity)

[oriecat]

Wow, those are nice. I better not check out this thread too much or I will come to hate mine. It's just in the basement, not closed away from the rest of it. So I just have two benches, one dry, one wet and some shelves and a utility sink. Totally beginner darkroom 101.

[mark]

Originally Posted by oriecat

Wow, those are nice. I better not check out this thread too much or I will come to hate mine. It's just in the basement, not closed away from the rest of it. So I just have two benches, one dry, one wet and some shelves and a utility sink. Totally beginner darkroom 101.

Don't worry you have to start somewhere, and what you have looks very functional. Fancy means nothing. When I moved I gave up my darkroom and am doing fine in my bathroom.

[oriecat]

Yeah, it's not too bad, right now my only real problem is drying space, my wire isn't long enough and I don't want another one because it bugs me, so I am going to make some screens to stack up underneath the one bench.

[Robert Hall]

These are older photos that don't show the UV light and the new Jobo processors, and it is not quite so neat, but here they are...

www.RobertHall.com/dr/index.htm

It also has a few from my light room. (Pay no mind to the digital box in there)

[David Ruby]

These threads are great to get ideas from, and even better when you're just starting to put your darkroom together. I printed photos like this off about a year ago while I was coming up with my design.

My darkroom is located in the furnace room I guess. The stairs are just behind the sink, and the furnace is on the opposite side of the stairs. I have to walk around the end, ducking under the duct work, to get to the dry area. My enlarger is mounted to an old bank of drawers, which is bolted to the concrete wall on the left. The top is a chunk of old preformed plastic laminate countertop that just barely doesn't tough the stair wall for fear of vibration.

The drawers contain paper, negative carriers, easels etc. My chemicals are mostly contained above the sink on the shelves, but I also have some under the sink. I've modified the plastic shelves in the Smalllogbk.jpg photo since this was taken. My log book is on the third shelf up, but I've now added two drying screens just below this shelf. I've also added a towel to the very bottom shelf for drying space.

My sink is made of plywood, out of a book I read. It was an old book, but very helpful. Can't think of the name right now, but someone will help me with that. I think it was "Building Your Home Darkroom" or something. I had to narrow it up due to the tight space I have. I added a wood leaning rail so my wrists don't get sore when agitating the trays.

I've also modified my enlarger baseboard since these photos. My 11x14 easel wouldn't fit here, so I bolted on a 3/4" piece of plywood to make it larger. My next trick will be to flip the whole thing around and enlarge down onto the floor or something lower. When making some 8x10's from 4x5 neg's I often have the enlarger up so high it hits the ductwork above. I have a feeling that when I get to doing anything larger than 11x14 I'll probalby try out Lloyd's one tray method, as my sink is just too small for all the various trays needed for fiber.

I painted the walls white to keep it as bright as possible, and I've simply added black near the enlarger etc. to take care of stray light etc. I don't have any special exhaust, mainly becuase this is the furnace room and there is a return air grille in the room. This space is also open to the crawl space slightly, so there is a fairly good volume of air to gather from. I do have to print in my skivvies in the winter (the furnace is on and it's about 73 degrees F) but it's wonderful in the summer (when the a/c is on it's about 68 degrees).

I just got a print dryer, so it will probalby go on the shelf out in the dry area.

[TPPhotog]

Originally Posted by mark

Don't worry you have to start somewhere, and what you have looks very functional. Fancy means nothing. When I moved I gave up my darkroom and am doing fine in my bathroom.

Yep my wife calls my darkroom the kitchen but it seems to work ok

[glbeas]

There was a thread on this a while back:

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum43/4822-ill-show-me-mine-if-you-show-me-yours.html

[Sean]

I like the way this thread is going, lots of good darkroom pics. I've made it a 'sticky'