James Bardolph Photoblog

Severin took Tanya & I to the darkroom he shares with 20 other students. Pretty cool place, and got me thinking – if I can find a bunch of people willing to do something similar, I can rent a shed or something in London. Yesterday I spent £95 getting my rolls from Vienna developed and printed, and I still have at least two rolls more to do. Moving on…

The lights go out so you are in complete darkness. Then you remove the film from the cannister and put it on spools like these. Then you pop them into the jar type things you see next to the spools. These things do not let light in and let you pour solution in to develop the film.

Here is said solution. When you close the bottle you must make sure no air is inside!

He mentioned something about temperature then poured the correct amount of solution. Or maybe he mentioned temperature after. Anyway:

Once the correct amount has been poured and the temperature is correct, he pours the solution into the jar containing the film.

I did not photograph every step so we skip a whole lot photo-wise. Anyway after pouring the solution in the clock starts. He moves the jar a certain amount of times every minute to make sure the developer solution gets to all the film. If this is not done contrast will be crap! He also bangs the jar on the table to remove any bubbles created from the moving.

Hop skip and jump loads of steps and it’s time to cut the film. I’m good at this step-by-step thing, eh?

“James what are you doing? That won’t come out!”

HA! Yes it will! Well half did but whatever. Anyway here he was making a print. Lights off. Red lamp thing on.

Next time I do a step-by-step I’ll cover the steps properly, I promise!