Alternative Process Darkroom

[Dan Schmidt]

Even if you are not working in the kitchen etc, it is always a good idea when handling larger quantities of chemicals ( like say when you are mixing up the metal salts), to have some form of additional containment in event of a spill.

Take a walk through a department store for some suitable plastic storage containers. It may take a while to find something with a flat bottom. You should also be able to find something larger to serve as secondary containment for trays.

I suspect you must already be doing something like that for negs in you kitchen.

As people have said you space does not need to be anywhere near dark for alt.

[David Schaller]

I used the sun, and then my kitchen, for POP, Cyanotype and Pt/Pd. Of course, I was single at the time....
Good luck,
Dave

[Scott Davis]

You can get by with room light when coating (as long as it isn't a UV rich light souce like most fluorescent tubes). You also need a contact frame, a Richeson 9010 "magic brush" (one per process, please - the iron-based processes don't mix well with the noble-metal processes), and I highly recommend a dedicated UV light source for consistency. You can get by with a single tray the largest size you plan to print, but multiple trays are better. I use a large sheet of glass on top of my work area for where I coat my paper and mix chemicals, to keep underneath clean, and to have a smooth flat surface on which to coat my paper.

For the UV light source, the "box" described above is an easy thing to make. I found blacklight fluorescent fixtures at Home Depot for about $20 USD. I have them on the bottom of an IKEA Ivar shelf, but if you make the box, it will be portable.

From Australia, I don't know what the shipping costs will be, but I can highly recommend Bostick & Sullivan for pt/pd and other alt process supplies - they are usually cheaper than Photographers Formulary. I think their chemicals are of higher quality - I've had bottles of B&S FeOx last well over a year in solution.