Question for Dan Smith - shooting in remote locations w/o darkroom

[Robert J Cardon]

Dan - I gather that it was you who spent the winter in a hinterlands ghost town shooting 8x10. What I was wondering is how you handled the reloading of your holders (assuming you reloaded on site) and if you had problems with dust. The dust seems to be managable in a darkroom situation with air filtration and clean conditions, but I suspect your digs were less than clean room quality, typical of extended trip situations to remote areas.

THX in advance

RJ

[Jan Nieuwenhuysen]

I am obviously not Dan Smith, but I can tell you what my experience is. I regularly reload on location using a changing tent. My general feeling is that people worry too much about dust. In my darkroom I have no clean air filtration, I just keep the place clean and tidy. Nothing special. The changing tent I keep in the car. My normal procedure is to shake out the dust once in a while and clean it out with a damp rag. Before I reload the holders I blow them with compressed 'air'. To be honest... I am not religious about that and when they look clean I don't bother. I never have problems with dust. I have often changed film on building sites and in the back of my car like that. In a ghost town I suppose you could black out some old room and put an old ghost's table in there? Does this Dan Smith have a website BTW? I would like to see his pictures.

[Jan Nieuwenhuysen]

Just saw your pictures Dan. Nice! Thanks for the link.