This is going to be hard ...

[sanking]

Drew,

Do you have a link to Andy Cross? I tried to look him up but did not find a reference to color carbon?

Sandy

[blueribbontea]

We tore down two dilapidated garages and built a new 16X10 ft darkroom from the ground up a year and a half ago. The advantages have been enormous. Never satisfied with glossy inkjet papers, now the Epson only prints matte. Galerie and Ilford Warmtone are so much nicer to work with. We do contact printing with AZO and Lodima and we are also doing platimum-palladium, cyanotype and Gum printing, all possible because we have a nice working darkroom. Just about to start printing on a horizontal 5X7 enlarger (we shoot 8X10, 5X7, 4X5 and 2X3) we have no second thoughts about our decision to invest in the darkroom.

Bill (and Kathy)

[Tin Can]

I have put together a very good darkroom, with too many enlargers. I will cull later.

I have everything anybody could dream about for analogue B&W and have spent far far less then 10K.

The trick is to shop gear correctly. Research the market and needed items. I have bought nothing new and much of what I have is in excellent to NOS condition.

Spread the word in your local area and far beyond. Network all your contacts. The darkroom of your dreams will happen, if you seek hard enough. Took me 2 years.

[Andrew O'Neill]

I would say yes, go for it. I'm glad I did. I have a darkroom and a lightroom. Love the ability to go hybrid when I need to (I Don't print digitally, though).

[brucetaylor]

Its getting so expensive it needs a business case. It is going beyond the personal 'thing'.

If it's beyond "personal" and needs a business case to justify the cost, then you need to build a business case. That will require hard research, not opinions from the likes of us. What you're talking about is return on investment, ROI. Are you currently selling your work through galleries or privately in sufficient volume to justify a $20k darkroom build? Is this work that you currently farm out to others? If it is, how many dollars do you need to invest in each print (printing, framing) to make your sale item (I am assuming your labor is not free, you need to get paid). Take that number and multiply by anticipated (from some sort of sales history) sales numbers. That's your cost whether you do it or you pay someone else. After expenses (paper, frames, etc) does that number produce the financial return you want for the darkroom and/or digital investment?

If you're not an established artist currently selling work then I don't think you can make a business case. It's just a hopeful guess, do it or do not. Without being too harsh, if you're not established and you are trying to sell your artwork to cover or defray your darkroom expense just don't figure the money is going to come back to you from print sales. Who knows, you might be a star, but 99.9% are not.

Then there is the whole issue of mixing art and commerce. How do you feel about it? If you want your work to make back a $20k investment in a reasonable period if time you're going to need to be hitting the commerce side hard. Is that what you want? I'm not making any judgements either way, I don't have a horse in the race.

I will say that from my own personal place that art and commerce do not mix. I do both, and they need to stay separate for me to be happy doing each one. YMMV, my 2 cents.

[stormpetrel]

Got my durst 139 (5x7 enlarger) here in New Zealand for less than NZ$1k. Total cost of my darkroom ~NZ$3k (including stereo, computer, glassware, ph-meter, magnetic stirrer, furniture, chemicals for DIY developer & wet plate collodion)
I agree with you, it is not an easy task to find a large format enlarger in our countries. It took me more than one year to get one!
Spread the word among "serious" photographers. Ask to museums and art schools (our National museum gave a massive 8x10 enlarger few years ago). Look on ebay people selling large format gears in Australia and ask them if they have an enlarger to sell (this is how I get mine).
Good hunt!
If you are interested to buy from NZ, I could send you the email of the guy who sold me the durst. He might have some 8x10 enlargers to sell.

Dominique

[Maris Rusis]

Do the darkroom. The difference between making pictures out of light-sensitive materials and doing computer print-outs goes much much deeper than archival considerations.

I budgeted and spent $5000 on my latest darkroom. This included building walls, installing plumbing, lots of electrical outlets, a split system air conditioner, and a nice sound system. I spend several hundred hours in the darkroom every year and I reckon I deserve a really comfortable workspace. My first darkroom was in Toowoomba and I did it really cheap. I also learned the truth of the old saying: your first darkroom you build for an enemy, the second for a friend, and the third for yourself.

Don't spend too much on enlargers. All mine, 8x10, 5x7, 4x5, and 35mm came for free from people thinking of sending them to landfill. And the trays, safelights, easels, etc were free too. It was just a case of looking around, asking, and waiting for bargains to surface.

[Kodachrome25]

I'm thinking its all a bit much really but I'd value some insight especially if you think there is a niche market or product that can be gained through the darkroom process.

If you are able to produce top notch work, then sure, go for it. I don't see the real darkroom being pushed aside by the Lightroom, ever. It's just an entirely different life as a photographer, trust me on that one, I have used digital for over 20 years and it does nothing for me like film and the darkroom does.

But again....are you good? Because if you are and the work is stunning, really interested parties will almost always ask how it was done and what a lot of fun it is to say it is *not* digital.

[AuditorOne]

I think the most important point has already been made. Printing is a demanding activity and will require you to dedicate your time to learning it if you want to learn it well. I personally had to make the same decision just a short time ago. I had my feet in both camps and was not at all happy with my results no matter what I did. I have decided to focus my attention on analogue so I am working at rebuilding my darkroom. I am not trying to say my decision is the best, either for me or for you. But I did learn that I do not have time to become good at both. I have to focus on just one. And that is the direction I have gone. What pushed me over to analogue was pretty simple. I am a traditional woodworker and I like creating things with my hands. Creating on computer just doesn't feel the same to me. Your preferences may be different.

Good luck with your decision. Don't worry about what others are doing and don't worry about the difficulty. How do YOU see yourself working in your dreams? That is where you should go.

[Tin Can]

+1.