1/12/2024 0 Comments Darkroom chemicalsI installed a large fan and the work space became a much more comfortable place to work. That incident woke me up to the need to ventilate my darkroom. And needless to say, sulfur dioxide gas is not healthy to be breathing. After about 15 minutes she said, “We’ve got to get out of here. After about 10 minutes working over the sink she complained of trouble breathing. It was only after I had an assistant helping me that I fully realized the severity of the situation. While it was much larger than the closets and bathrooms I had used before this time, I noticed that I was only able to work for about 15 minutes at a time and then I would always begin to feel anxious and have trouble concentrating. The realization that I was slowly being poisoned finally came to me after I set up a darkroom in the laundry room of my house. And now that I know the dangers of photographic chemicals and their fumes, I am surprised and fortunate that I haven’t had even more severe problems. Usually located in a laundry room, bathroom, or large closets, all my darkrooms have had one thing in common: little or no ventilation.Ībout 9 years ago, I began to connect the darkroom with health problems I was having. I’ve had a darkroom of one sort or another since I was in college when my roommate and I turned our dorm room into a portrait studio and our walk-in closet, a black and white lab. To them it’s not an old thing, but entirely new.Having a your own darkroom can be fun and profitable. The high school I teach in has 12 enlargers and gets students working with film. There are young people learning film photography. We say there’s a resurgence of film in use. Really? Because photographers don’t need supplies on the weekend? They’re only open Monday through Thursday, closed Friday through Sunday. They’re also in south Denver, so about an hour and a quarter away, add have a large photo chemical selection, but they don’t have weekend hours. Now, I know Denver Pro Photo has it in stock. Here’s one I wanted to print of some friends, but I guess it will have to wait since I can’t buy print developer anywhere in Boulder or Denver until next week. Shouldn’t they have a few on hand for the occasional user, since they are a camera shop? Even if they don’t sell a lot of it? The salesperson said they were sorry they didn’t have it, and I said I was sorry, too. ![]() The salesperson said they don’t stock it anymore because there’s not that much demand for it. It’s an hour away, but worth it if I can get the developer and get back to printing this weekend. ![]() The biggest camera store chain and not a developer to be found. Nope, Out of stock at all Colorado locations. I asked the salesperson to check if a different Mike’s Camera location might have it in stock. B&H and Adorama and all the online stores have it in stock. As far as I know, the chemicals are still readily available. There was an empty photo chemicals shelf at their Boulder location a month ago when I went there. Now, all I had to do was get some fresh paper developer and I was off to the races. Ok, not ideal, but I had figured out how to make prints in this new darkroom space. I could not see the image while it was in the developer. It worked, but the prints have a slight sepia tone, almost as if the developer stained the paper. it was the color of hot chocolate as a powder, and turned into a deep brown liquid–almost the color of used motor oil–when it was mixed with 95-degree water. Well, guess I didn’t figure that correctly, either. Some time ago, I had picked up a package of Kodak Dektol at an estate sale that I figured never goes bad, after all it’s dry crystals. I just had to figure out the paper developer. I added the water, mixed it up, and exposed a sheet of paper. I poured out two ounces of the developer and it was the color of coffee. My goal was to mix all the chemicals using liquids, no powders. I had a bottle of Ilford Multigrade Paper Developer I have been waiting to use for some time. ![]() Today was the perfect day to mix up some chemicals and I knew just which negatives I wanted to print. I recently wrote about how I set up a new darkroom, moving it up from the basement into my small bathroom since I struggle to work downstairs without running water. It’s a photographer’s dream now that film is making a resurgence, there’re plenty of film cameras and film stocks available in these stores. There’s Mike’s Camera which has multiple locations in both cities. Which is convenient since we have multiple camera shops to stock up on supplies. Denver is less than an hour away from Boulder.
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