darkroom V paying

[bob2]

Im quite new to photography and a darkroom is a long way off but I was curios what the benefits were of doing it myself.

[PHOTOTONE]

You can become "one" with your work.

[bob2]

good reason

[Removed Account]

For me it is the experience of being totally responsible for the image. I think in many ways I enjoy the darkroom work more than making negatives. To go with the old musician's analogy, to me getting lab prints made would be like writing a song without playing it yourself. There may be better players out there, but the learning and sense of accomplishment of taking an image from beginning to completion is tremendous. I love that I can take 1 negative and create many different versions of the same image, some that hardly look alike! It never gets old seeing the image come out in the developer, anticipating the results of my enlarger hand dance. Also it can be cheaper to make prints yourself rather than have a lab do it, but this is not necessarily so. To me the cost of experimenting is well worth it.

- Justin

[bob2]

makes alot of sense.Very much like my tying my own flies for fishing.

[DougGrosjean]

I live in a small rural town. It's quicker (and cheaper) for me to develop my own b/w than to use the car or motorcycle to go to town and wait, or to go to town, drop off film, and go to town again a few days later.

I get results right away, and I can alter the output / product as well.

Plus, learning to do my own b/w has made it possible for me to play with push-processing, as well as large-format, and contact printing.

[DarkroomExperimente]

Another thing is...you can do a million things that a regular lab really can't do for you

for example, I seeing a beautiful photo in a book of a foggy landscape....one element of the image that really made it work was a bright sun trying to peek through the thick clouds. Well, that sun wasn't in the original photo. The photographer said the image was nice...but it seemed to be missing something...so halfway through the exposure under the enlarger he placed a nickel on the paper. It was the coin that created the image of the sun. Maybe you could find a lab that would do that for you...but would they put the sun exactly where you wanted it? It could take a dozen visits to get it right. But if you're doing it you can adjust everything...

that's my 2 cents...er...5 cents

[jnanian]

hi bob2

cause it is a bunch of fun ...
and scary and magical
to see something appear on film,
or on what was once a white sheet of paper ...

john

ps. i love your music

[Valerie]

Magic happens (and no Hogwarts education is needed)

[JBrunner]

#1: Control, control, control.
#2: Economy.
#3: Flexibility in developers, paper, and other processes.
#4: Convenience.
#5: Control.
#6: Control.