Darkroom Photography

November 3, 2009 at 3:02 AM (Uncategorized)

Digital photography is a revolutionary way that allows photographers to immediately see the photographs they create, and be able to take multiple shots of the same scene without worrying about running out of film.

Even with the new revolutionary photography, darkroom photography is just as amazing, but in a different way.  Darkroom photography is composed with film, and the photographer is not able to see their photos immediately.  The photographer also has to be very careful about their shots because they only have a limited amount of shots in one roll of film.

What is most exciting to me about darkroom photography is the fact that I am the one developing the film and creating the photographs.  I am the one that rolls the film onto the reels and add the different developer to makes the negatives appear.  What is so nerve racking about rolling the film on the reels, is the person has to be in a completely dark room with no light.  If light is exposed to the film before it is developed, then the film is ruined. 

Depending on the film, it takes about 45 minutes to develop and a day for the film to dry.  What is most exciting is waiting while the film is being developed because for me at least, I am always worried the film has been exposed to light and is ruined.

After the film dries, it is ready to produce photographs.  What I like most about the darkroom is it is all hands on.  You are not sitting at a computer clicking a mouse, but instead you are physically picking the photograph to expose and then exposing it onto a piece of paper.

The routine I find efficient when creating photographs is the darkroom is first creating a contact sheet, which is an exposed photograph with the entire film photographs on it, and then choosing the photographs that look best.  Then I put the negative into the enlarger and decide how large I want the photograph to be.  Then I expose the piece of paper and put it into the different developers.  The process usually takes about five minutes to expose and develop, but I usually have to create about five of the same photograph to make it perfect.

Even though the process to develop the film and then create the actual photographs takes a long time, it is still fun and sometimes I would rather do that then mess around with Photoshop.