Here's something I haven't done in 5+ years...

[Josh Root]

http://www.brothersroot.com/josh/photos/jan06/joshdarkroom.jpg

It's been at least 5 years since I have mixed up darkroom chemicals. The smells really bring back the memory. Let's hope I actually remember how to do everything correctly. I probably should have bought forgiving tri-x instead of tmax.

*sigh*

All in the name of shooting 4x5.

[Bruce Watson]

5x4 is good. Tri-X is good. Tmax is good. It's all good.

[dan nguyen]

Bravo Josh...

Your darkroom is very very similar to mine...I'm about to restart it again... just curious, a question... what make you decide to return to your darkoom...?

[Luca Merlo]

Josh, we are with you. Keep us posted .....

[Mark Fisher]

Funny, I just started getting back in the darkroom too. I'd been printing digitally and it was very cool at first when I saw how much control you could have, how I could fit in short sessions, etc.....the dark side sucked me in. I went back and printed a couple of images that would not scan well (screwed up the development) and re-discovered how rewarding wet darkroom is. Just being able to go back to glassy paper makes it worth it (-: To be fair, I also discovered how much my printing improved by using photoshop. Photoshop allows you to go through several different intrepretations of a print pretty quickly....a good learning tool. Anyway, Josh, you will not regret going back to the wet darkroom. Have fun.

Mark

[Josh Root]

In reality, the only reason I ended up back in the darkroom is that I came across this Linhof kit, and I decided I wanted to shoot a project with it.

Not having the time, money, or a quality b/w lab nearby, I couldn't very well have the negs done by someone else. So here I am, back in the land of smelly hands.

But it is fun in an odd sort of way. A nice vacation from staring at the computer screen.

[paulr]

it sounds great ... i'm sure you'll have a blast.

i miss my darkroom. didn't rebuild it when i moved a couple of years ago. for a lot of reasons, but primarily expense the discontinuation of my favorite paper. but my paper is back, so who knows?

i will say that i find darkroom work to be extremely inefficient at the times when i'm not doing a lot of it. the darkroom is like kitchen in that way. if you cook a meal once every couple of weeks, you start from scratch on every meal. but if you cook every day, you have a workflow. you buy in larger quantities, use things up before they go bad, have the leftovers from one day's meal to get the next meal started, etc. etc... i hate wanting to get some film processed, and then realizing it means i have to go to the store, mix up 3 different solutions, clear off space, etc. etc... at any rate, i found the darkroom a joy when i was immersed in a big project, but a big drag for ocasional dabbling.

[Donald Qualls]

Josh, it'll come back fast. I spent not quite 25 years away from the darkroom, and the first roll of film I processed myself was like I'd never left...