Poll: How long is your average darkroom printing session?

[Kirk Gittings]

Voted 2 to 4 hours but have gone longer but that would not be an average. 12 to 14 hours is some hardcore sessions, my back would give up long before that.

If I was standing up the whole time my back would go on strike too. I will work till I get a reasonable test print, dry it in the microwave, pin it on the wall, grab a cup of java or tea and sit with it awhile, decide how I want to proceed and then do the same cycle fine tuning the print till I get what I want.

[BarryS]

I envy any printers that can get productive work done in a couple hours. My sessions usually last 5-6 hours in the evenings, or 8 hours on the rare occasion I have a full day to print. I've been steadily upgrading my darkroom and processes to increase my productivity and have had some good 3-4 hour sessions lately. My own experience is that a lot of time is wasted because of inefficient practices--so I'm trying to improve on my workflow.

[Vaughn]

I don't have a dedicated darkroom, and use the kitchen. Quick set up, so I have little wasted time. Mostly print at the weekend or on a day off, so I can experiment and work through a negative. A good session will run 8-12 hours (including wash time) depending on how challenging the negatives are.
Short sessions are less productive, so work days are no use. Once upon a time, too long ago, I could have printed all night then gone to work. No more- the paying job needs to much concentration and focus for me to get away with that.

For 22 years I ran the darkroom for a university...4 hrs a day (10am to 2pm). So after an all-night session, after putting all my gear away by 7am so that I would not be in the way of classes/students, I would walk into town, have breakfast, then walk back to start work. Students knew if I had a glazed sort of look, not to ask too complicated of questions. And when I got home, my three boys would see me in the Lazyboy with my eyes closing -- they knew it was 'freetime'! It is amazing what three 6 year olds can do when Dad is not paying close attention! I have opened my eyes to find them 'cooking' -- making cookies out of anything they could find in the kitchen...flour, pepper, you name it. We'd try to cook them up just for fun.

Before the boys were born, I could do two or three all-night sessions a week, no problem...with naps in the afternoon before the sessions. With the boys, one, and sometimes two a week was the limit. The boys are older now (almost 17) but I am afraid that with aging, one all-night session is all I can do in a week. But I no longer operate the university darkroom and am working on building my own. I am looking forward to being able to spend spurts of time -- 3 or 4 hours, then get busy with other projects, then another 3 or 4 hours of printing...that sort of thing. With carbon printing there is a lot of waiting for various processing steps to finish. Looking forward to increasing my work efficiency!

[Kirk Gittings]

For 22 years I ran the darkroom for a university...4 hrs a day (10am to 2pm). So after an all-night session, after putting all my gear away by 7am so that I would not be in the way of classes/students, I would walk into town, have breakfast, then walk back to start work. Students knew if I had a glazed sort of look, not to ask too complicated of questions. And when I got home, my three boys would see me in the Lazyboy with my eyes closing -- they knew it was 'freetime'! It is amazing what three 6 year olds can do when Dad is not paying close attention! I have opened my eyes to find them 'cooking' -- making cookies out of anything they could find in the kitchen...flour, pepper, you name it. We'd try to cook them up just for fun.

Before the boys were born, I could do two or three all-night sessions a week, no problem...with naps in the afternoon before the sessions. With the boys, one, and sometimes two a week was the limit. The boys are older now (almost 17) but I am afraid that with aging, one all-night session is all I can do in a week. But I no longer operate the university darkroom and am working on building my own. I am looking forward to being able to spend spurts of time -- 3 or 4 hours, then get busy with other projects, then another 3 or 4 hours of printing...that sort of thing. With carbon printing there is a lot of waiting for various processing steps to finish. Looking forward to increasing my work efficiency!

seriously? 3 six year old boys?

[Mark Woods]

Hey Vaughn, hang in there with the carbon. I like to see it, but don't like to do it.

[Heroique]

One session per day for me – four to six hours long.

This is for enlarging w/ my Omega D2v + traditional tray processing. (I'm not counting print drying time on the drying screen).

After 4-6 hours, I start making mistakes, some little, some big. Even when I was younger w/ greater stamina, 4-6 hours was still my limit before I began making mistakes. I'm glad the limit hasn't come down as my birthdays keep coming, but I'm prepared for the inevitable slide in my powers of concentration, and keep watching for it. I hope it never drops to, say, one hour – but maybe strong coffee will help!

Also, while I often work on two successive days, I never work three days in a row – for very similar reasons. That day of rest on the third day seems to make a difference when I resume work the fourth day...

[Curt]

Two experiences have provided me with abilities that are useful. One is military, the other is medical. That is, be prepared, setup, ready to go, and work with an economy of motion. I prepare the darkroom ahead of time so that I can walk in and go right to work. One negative at a time in one session. For silver, selenium toning follows later. Printing to dry down takes time so the actual work must be done effeciently. Carbon is different, it has built in work and stop components. A third experience is education. It's not the degrees, I have several, but to the degree that the knowledge is applied.

[Sal Santamaura]

seriously? 3 six year old boys?

Yup; Vaughn has triplets.

[Kirk Gittings]

Wow.....he is a brave man. But based on my experience better boys than girls!

[Mark Woods]

Oh Kirk, I don't have experience with a son, but I have a great daughter.