my life, my thoughts, my world.

Illusionists have been wowing people for centuries with their sleight of hand. Sometimes their trickery is entertaining, but it is never permanent and you cannot take it with you and hang it on the wall. Enter the darkroom. Here, you can watch things appear before your very eyes and hang it on the wall later.

I had dismissed darkroom printing as a waste of time and money for several months. Why bother? Sitting just to my left is a pretty nice film scanner. How often do I view images in print? Who knows, but the vast majority of the time I’m viewing images on a screen. Now, few are unaware of my preference for black and white images. Printing black and white on an inkjet with anything resembling a successful result requires a good deal of time and monetary investment. Purplish-blue and bluish-white is easy. Grayscale? Not so much.

A few weeks ago, the opportunity to take a look at high quality darkroom prints presented itself and I took it. Two binders live in my dark closet. Several of the negatives residing within those binders ought to find their way onto my walls. Seeing the level of detail in these enlargements was enough to push me over the edge: I am building a darkroom. Wait a second, I have never even been in a darkroom before! A kind member of the Texas Photo Forum volunteered her time, patience, and darkroom to show me the ropes. After several hours of playing around in the dark and getting a feel for the process I left with pleased with several prints. Two of my favorites are below. I recommend clicking and pressing ‘L’.

Grandma

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