Anyone Here Have a Black & White Darkroom?

[Kisatchie]

So handling the chemicals used in your dark room is not a problem, you are careful as you should be, giving the products the respect they deserve ........ now for the clean up ........ what happens to your waste ........ is it correctly disposed of or just emptied down the drain ....... maybe even worse tipped out into the local environment for nature to take care of.

How are you and by what means are you proposing to dispose of your toxic waste?

I did some research and read that the small amounts of chemicals in a home darkroom can be safely poured down the drain with a lot of water to dilute it. That's what I've always done.


Hmm... WARNING, Will
Robinson... never put any
darkroom chemicals in a
septic tank...

[havingfuntoo]

I did some research and read that the small amounts of chemicals in a home darkroom can be safely poured down the drain with a lot of water to dilute it. That's what I've always done.


Just make sure you do it between 6.30 and 7.30 in the morning, at that time the sewers are running full of morning joy,  your waste will be well and truly diluted and carried away. I am assuming by drain you were suggesting sewerage and not storm water.

[Spades]

I did some research and read that the small amounts of chemicals in a home darkroom can be safely poured down the drain with a lot of water to dilute it. That's what I've always done.


Hmm... WARNING, Will
Robinson... never put any
darkroom chemicals in a
septic tank...

The problem with disposing photo developing chemicals is silver waste (fixer, etc) If you ever complained about water quality, you probably shouldn't be dumping chemical waste down the drain. Your little bit plus 330 million other Americans little bit of hazmat adds up overtime.

 A number of waste districts have programs for disposing of small amounts of household hazardous waste

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Primarily because most of the photography gurus here in the world work in digital.

FTFY

[tom mann]

Film is coming back though, as evidenced by the weekly articles on photo blogs.  For trains, I really appreciate the quality of slides as seen as processed in TRP.  Digital is only recently approaching that level of quality, but it still a few years away. So if you have the money and time and are interested in the ultimate archival end product, film is where it's at.

[nscaleSPF2]

I really appreciate the quality of slides as seen as processed in TRP.

Tom, TRP = Tryptophan?  Canadian Trooper?  The Red Pill?     Please extrapolate.  Would like to learn more...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Tom, TRP = Tryptophan?  Canadian Trooper?  The Red Pill?     Please extrapolate.  Would like to learn more...

I think he means the magazine (aka The Railroad Press). It's White River's prototype mag. They also do a "Trains of the Past" version, which is up there with Classic Trains as my favorite mag.

[nscaleSPF2]

Oh, ok, thanks for clearing that up, Ed.

[Mark5]

I worked with film for years and I know professional photographers that started with film (naturally, since I am old!). Most of them work in digital now, but yeah digital is starting to approach the best film.

Film is still a great medium in terms of a photographic art form. Digital is so much easier (who would take 400 photos in an afternoon with a film camera?).

I still have my Nikon F, and a separate German light meter - sitting on a shelf ...

Mark

[Kisatchie]

...Digital is so much easier (who would take 400 photos in an afternoon with a film camera?).

Wait until you have to sit in front of a computer editing/photoshopping those 400 photos LOL.


Hmm... B&W is sooo much
easier...

[tom mann]

I think he means the magazine (aka The Railroad Press). It's White River's prototype mag. They also do a "Trains of the Past" version, which is up there with Classic Trains as my favorite mag.

Yes, Ed's right.  The Railroad Press always has the best quality, best printed photos.

[Mark5]

Wait until you have to sit in front of a computer editing/photoshopping those 400 photos LOL.

I don't, but I have a photographer friend - she actually goes through this anguish.

[Mark5]

Yes, Ed's right.  The Railroad Press always has the best quality, best printed photos.

Yes, by far my favorite train rag.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I don't, but I have a photographer friend - she actually goes through this anguish.

At least Photoshop has scripting in it (ie, Actions) to automate what you can.

[robert3985]

Wait until you have to sit in front of a computer editing/photoshopping those 400 photos LOL.


Hmm... B&W is sooo much
easier...

LOL!  Seems funny, yeah?  But, obviously you don't know anything about top-end photo editors, such as Photoshop.  There's a function called "Batch Processing" which will take care of all of those 400 photos simultaneously, and still let you keep the untouched RAW files for further, individual manipulation if you need it, or want it on photos that particularly turn your crank.

On the other hand, what if you've taken a couple of hundred images on film at a wedding, and your customer loves each and every one of them?  Your choices were to do the printing yourself, individually burning and dodging, cropping, using different paper for different effects, developing different times for different effects...all while in the smelly, safe-lit darkroom, OR sending them all to your commercial processor of choice and letting THEM do the creative work on your prints.  Most commercial photographers I knew and worked with in the days of film used commercial processors for their print work, thus giving a good portion of their creative work to somebody else, along with a goodly portion of their profits.  I got paid well for my airbrushing on the big, display prints.

Sure, for the hobbyist who may want a print or two from a day's enjoyment using their old film camera body, the darkroom is fun, and doesn't take too much time.  But, for the pro photographer, digital has opened up the reality of manipulating each and every print, or digital file he/she sells, allowing full control of the creative process.

The downside to this is that pro photographers almost universally spend more time in their studios now doing post-camera work, or they hire people to do it...much like sending prints out to the commercial processors during the film era.  It depends on the volume of work, what the purpose of the photographer's art is and if he/she enjoys post-camera photo manipulation.

The only color film that the award-winning wedding photographer I worked with most processed in his darkroom was Ekatachrome.  His color negative film went to the commercial processor, and he got contact sheets back (he shot Hassy's with 120/220 film, and Mamiya RB67's with a 6X7 format on 120/220 film), which he marked up, then sent back to the processor to produce interim high quality 5x7 prints.  When he got those back, he mounted them in a book to show the customer, with a schedule as to what size prints and quality they wanted.  When he got the book back from the customer, he sent the processor instruction as to what amount, size and quality the final prints should be enlarged to.  When those came back (along with the negatives), if there were spots or weirdness, then I re-touched the prints with spotting brush and airbrush on the big display prints, and only at that point, did he deliver the final product to his customer...and get the remainder of his payment.

It was a long, drawn-out and tedious process, which digital has largely eliminated, except the customer now gets several hundred photos.  Failure rate due to the commercial processor messing up, camera malfunction or photographer error has also been greatly reduced, and dynamic range of modern digital cameras has greatly increased the photo opportunities, decreasing photographer intrusion into an event as the flash has been almost rendered superfluous.

But, for the hobbyist, or the pro who wants to personally print either single prints or a few prints, the B&W darkroom can be fun, and maybe profitable.

BUT, any implication that digital photo manipulation (Photoshopping) is MORE labor intensive than the old darkroom is patently, and provably false.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore