Have any of my fellow Pacific Northwesterners considered alternatives to their wet darkroom processes given the potential for a severe water drought this year? I'm curious about what's going through the minds of those that are currently wet darkroom advocates (film and printing...). Maybe we can get some water from SoCal?!!
The only trouble with doin' nothing is you can't tell when you get caught up
Being in the greater Seattle area I am more than a little concerned. I am taking stetps to minimize my water use i.e. religious use of perma-wash, RC paper for most of my printing and adopting the washing technique espoused by Fred Picker and detailed on the website of Fine Art photo Supply. Other steps......i'll let the lawn and shrubbery die and not wash my underwear as often. going digital is out of the finiancial question for me.
Would you believe that the water bills in L.A. will be dropping because we won't have to import as much water this year? We can spare quite a few gallons for your plants. I'm not sure about the laundry though...
I'm over here in Sisters, Oregon. Near Bend in the high desert. I'm pretty concerned for a number of reasons. First is fire risk. Too many trees around me, dry pine needles, that sort of thing. It's the risk one takes living in such a place, but it gives me an uneasy feeling.
I'm going to do all my archival washing in the headwaters of the irrigation ditch near me. Those guys with the golf courses get water til it runs Squaw Creek (wild and scenic river no less) dry. Can't imagine a little TF 4 residue will hurt their greens.
Seriously, I've been washing most of my prints in a series of small trays instead of in the washer. I paid good money a while back to get a washing machine of the new fangled variety that takes two hours and uses three drops of detergent and six of water. Clothes don't get clean, but it keeps the well full.
By the way, we're getting snow tonight, six inches with a couple more tomorrow. First time in forever. Lets hope for a wet spring!
I'm in the process of setting up a darkroom in my garage. I live over near downtown Redmond. My opinion is: If I see those goobers watering their golf courses this summer, then they can't begrudge me a bit of wash time. After all, if the ski resorts have to bit the bullet this winter the golf courses can certainly take one in the arm (not to mix metaphors or anything)
Amen to the golf course goobers idea. They should take a monthly census at each course multiply it by the number of gallons we'll all be alloted and then only supply that much water to the course. I think most of the courses would brown pretty quickly: it takes as much water to grow an acre of corn as it does to supply a town of 5000 for a year.
The only trouble with doin' nothing is you can't tell when you get caught up
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