lamphousekat
20-Feb-2014, 13:36
Hi there! My name is Katherine, I'm new here and so I thought I would say "hi" and introduce myself before I dive in!
I live in Wichita, Kansas with my husband and together we bought a vintage travel trailer/camper and turned it into a large format photography studio and darkroom on wheels!
We tow it around, take people's portraits and develop them by hand. We use a Burke & James Saturn 75 with a 4x5 reducing back and right now we use a paper negative process to develop the pictures. We drew inspiration from the Afghan Box Camera and their processing style but basically in a little bit bigger box ; )
It's definitely been a learning experience and even after taking and developing almost 500 photos last year we're still coming up with new questions and new ways to streamline our system. We love the way they look and the consistency of the photos is great but when we're taking/developing 100 photos a day, the darkroom starts to get a little...backed up.
Right now it takes me about 10 minutes to develop two 4x5 photos but we're actually getting ready to try some new direct positive paper and see if that will cut down on developing time/confusion in the darkroom.
The only thing is, it's fiber based and as such, it requires a longer wash time. A LOT longer. Does anyone happen to know of any RC direct positive paper on the market? We've seen one mentioned that Ilford makes before but can't seem to find it anywhere. Any other suggestions would be appreciated, too!
Thanks! :D
http://lamphousephotoco.com
I live in Wichita, Kansas with my husband and together we bought a vintage travel trailer/camper and turned it into a large format photography studio and darkroom on wheels!
We tow it around, take people's portraits and develop them by hand. We use a Burke & James Saturn 75 with a 4x5 reducing back and right now we use a paper negative process to develop the pictures. We drew inspiration from the Afghan Box Camera and their processing style but basically in a little bit bigger box ; )
It's definitely been a learning experience and even after taking and developing almost 500 photos last year we're still coming up with new questions and new ways to streamline our system. We love the way they look and the consistency of the photos is great but when we're taking/developing 100 photos a day, the darkroom starts to get a little...backed up.
Right now it takes me about 10 minutes to develop two 4x5 photos but we're actually getting ready to try some new direct positive paper and see if that will cut down on developing time/confusion in the darkroom.
The only thing is, it's fiber based and as such, it requires a longer wash time. A LOT longer. Does anyone happen to know of any RC direct positive paper on the market? We've seen one mentioned that Ilford makes before but can't seem to find it anywhere. Any other suggestions would be appreciated, too!
Thanks! :D
http://lamphousephotoco.com