Darkroom work, to traditional black and white photographers, is the crucial "next step" in the making of a creative image. Once shot, the film must be processed, washed and carefully stored for printing. Large format photographers often require ample space to process and print their work. Thus, in January 2000 I began work on a 1,000 square foot darkroom complex. Several years in the making, this space now provides a comfortable environment for the critical processing, printing and finishing of my black and white work.

The entire darkroom consists of three interconnected rooms. The printing room contains negative files, photographic paper safes, a negative inspection and cleaning area, and six enlargers. This room is entirely dry with no water or chemicals present and is constantly cleaned with an electrostatic air scrubber. Here, negatives are examined, cleaned of dust, and loaded into enlargers for printing. The enlargers, equipped with cold lights, handle negative sizes of 35mm, 6x7cm, 4x5", 5x7", 8x10"  and 11x14". A fourth and separate room is planned for the largest instrument, a 14"x17" horizontal projection enlarger built from a modified graphic arts camera.

The second room is a laboratory. Here, film is processed, washed and dried, chemistry mixed and stored and prints developed ranging in size from 8x10" to 31/2x 51/2'. It also contains a dedicated station for the making of special print contrast control films known as unsharp masks. Film processing is done in tanks by nitrogen gas burst agitation as well as in trays. All film processing is done in total darkness.

 

The third room is also lab space but is both wet and dry and devoted to film and print finishing. It includes dry chemical storage, a print spotting area, a 42x65" custom stainless steel print washing sink, and a Seal 44x68" vacuum drymount press. This space is used for print washing, drying, spotting and mounting. It also houses all of the darkroom plumbing equipment such as water heater, pumps, filters, and compressed air systems neatly installed beneath a sink and countertop. Although considerably larger and more sophisticated than most privately owned darkrooms, this non-commercial facility has been created with utmost efficiency and no wasted space.