In Praise of Size (not a question)

[Calamity Jane]

(Ok, what did you THINK I was going to talk about????)

For them what are considering establishing a darkroom and pondering the options, I thought I would pass on some personal comments.

After almost 40 years of temporary darkrooms ranging from 4x6 foot clothsets, bathrooms, spare bedrooms, etc., I have finally moved into my purpose-built basement darkroom with a HUGE amount of space (I light-proofed the entire basement). It has a baffled entrance, exhaust air handling system, low voltage lighting control with 4 light levels (dark, safelight, low light, and bright lights) with low light and safe light on dimmers so they are adjustable. The working area of the darkroom is about 12x16 with film drying outside of the working area. There are 4 safelights; 3 in the working area (one on each wall) and one near the entrance, so the illumination is very even and I never end up working in a shadow.

Having spent some time in the new darkroom and processed some E-6, some B&W, and a bunch of tintypes, all I can say is

WOW!

Having the space to move about freely without tripping over stuff or bumping into stuff, having space to have a bunch of stuff out at one time (without being stacked up), and having the ability to "nip out" for a second without putting everything away is GREAT!

If you love your photography and enjoy your darkroom time, and if you have the option, GO FOR SPACE! You wont regret it!

This will probably be my last darkroom - I'll go from here to the old fart's home or be found dead in the darkroom - and I LOVE IT! I should have done it years ago.

Just thought I'd share :-)

[John Cook]

Jane, I agree completely.

Over the decades I have worked in 14 b&w, color and print darkrooms, each with radically different layouts. So You would think I might have become an expert on what works.

Not so. A few years ago, upon retirement, I completely rebuilt my home darkroom and downsized it from 12' x 24' to 12' x 12'. It looked wonderful on paper.

Aside from the spiffy new decor, the major difference in size has been accomplished by reducing the 48 running feet of counter space to a mere 4 feet.

What a jerk!

While I am still frisky enough to operate the Shopsmith, it's time to rebuild again...

[Calamity Jane]

John: LOL!!!! From 48 feet to 4 feet ??? !!! YIKES!

[Ralph Barker]

Congrats on the new darkroom, CJ. And, as to the inevitable demise many years from now, may I suggest resisting any temptation of going into the dim, so to speak (moving [or, being moved] to an OF home). Just clunk over in the darkroom. ;-)

I don't have a basement, so that option doesn't exist for me. But, I am looking forward to the conversion of the bedroom that backs up to the laundry closet in my new house. That will give me a 10' x 10' darkroom - spacious compared to what I've worked with over the years.

[John Kasaian]

In the Barbie darkroom (my 7 year old daughter's bathroom) I add counter space when needed by using TV tray tables. Kind of wobbly but I look upon it as an aid to agitation.

When the printing session is over, stewardess Barbie says "Make sure all tray tables are folded and stowed" ;-)

[Mike H.]

My darkroom: 9 X 11 to include wet, dry and all storage.

My hero: Calamity Jane.

[Donald Qualls]

My darkroom: a not-too-spacious bathroom.

OTOH, I can convert without getting written permission from the landlord (no permanent alterations to the structure), and it can still serve as a bathroom between printing or film loading sessions. And it cost almost nothing to light seal.

Space? Just means you have to walk around more. I don't even think about trying to recut paper or load film in the same session as printing -- the same counter overlay (to turn a sink into flat space) is used for both...

[dan nguyen]

CJ...

agree with you 100%.... my darkroom seems to shrink in size... more and more stuff to put in ...not counting that the house seems smaller and smaller too because photography stuff and computer stuffs are eveyrwhere.... Put those stuff in storage is not a solution because I need them everyday....I NEED SPACE TOO... ... :-)

If I could I 'd move and live in a warehouse.....2 stories warehouse is better....

[Steve Clark]

Good for you !!!
I`ve worked in my share dark ( darker than necessary) dismal darkrooms and have always felt that a darkroom is a place that one should enjoy working in. So with my current, and hopefully last darkroom, I`ve created a "clean well lighted place". Fair sized too! Twelve foot sink and seperate four foot wash sink. Now if life didn`t get in the way so often, I`d get to spend more time in a place that I enjoy, doing the things that I enjoy...

[Calamity Jane]

For any what's interested, I have posted a tour of my new darkroom over here : http://www.geocities.com/winnonad/newdarkroom/nd1.html (until I hit my bandwidth limit on Yahoo - in which case try again later).

[John_4185]

Darkrooms can be too big for me. I like the wet side to be right behind me so that I can just turn around from the enlarger. The bigger the sink, the better. I don't fathom how people can tolerate walking to the sink to develop the print. Without disprespect, I present a colleague's well used darkroom. His prints certainly don't suffer for all the space and walking - here: http://www.drakehokanson.com/makingphotographs.html

My whole darkroom, by comparison, is about as big as his sink.

[Sanders McNew]

You guys are killing me. I live in Manhattan in a 2 bedroom apartment, so no basement and no extra rooms of any sort. I cammibalized half of a walk-in closet for a darkroom -- just enough room for an Omega D-2 enlarger and a stack of 12x16 trays next to it. No counter space, no running water, no ventilation, and not light-tight during the day. The only saving grace is that it's a 10-minute subway ride to B+H when I run out of paper.

Sanders McNew
www.mcnew.net

[Bee Flowers]

Sanders - no ventilation is pretty risky. I sure learned that the hard way and it was more a case of too little ventilation rather than none at all.

[Calamity Jane]

Agreed Bee!

One thing that came with the new darkroom is enough space (volume) that it doesn't get stuffy like my 8x10 foot drakroom used to, especially when using a 100 degree F tempering bath! The exhaust system also keeps the humidity down when running colour film in hot water. To do colour in the old darkroom in the summer time, I'd wear a bathing suit! ;-)

[Struan Gray]

Calamity, to fully understand the change, I think we need the 'before' picture.

[Calamity Jane]

Previous darkroom http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/calamityjanecanary/Darkroom3.jpg

[Struan Gray]

You had me going there.

Love the enlarger.

[Larry Kalajainen]

Being a pastor for all my working life so far, I have (until now) lived in church-owned housing, which I had limited authority to renovate. So my darkrooms have ranged from bathrooms to basements to laundry rooms in a variety of configurations over the years. Some were tiny, some were "knock-down" multi-purpose, and some where comparatively spacious.

Now I'm in my own house, but with limited room in the basement. Essentially, the house came with the basement cut in half--half was beautifully finished into a family-room rec center, and the other half is for laundry, storage, and heating/hot water systems. So I was limited to working with the unfinished half and the need to balance darkroom and storage space. So my present darkroom is 12X6 1/2 with the dry side across the width at one end, and an 8' plywood/fiberglass sink running lengthwise along one wall. The other long wall contains shelving for chemicals, negs, contacts, and my lightbox. I have a Beseler 45 enlarger with wall-mounted shelves for paper, etc. behind it and drawers and cabinets under it. My standing room is approximately 2' wide between sink and shelves. Shelves and pegboard over the sink hold tanks, funnels, and other paraphenalia. A shelf under the sink holds chemical jugs.

It's neither the largest nor the smallest darkroom I've had, but I'm finding it surprisingly adequate, as long as I don't allow clutter to accumulate. I stand on good rubber fatigue mats, which cover the floor between sink and shelves, so all in all, not a bad place.

I think for me a dry side about twice the width of my enlarger is adequate; the big sink is definitely nice, and easily has room for six 11X14 trays when I need them.

Larry