Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/04/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Thu, 05 Apr 2007 Tina Manley <images@comporium.net> wrote: >After many years in the darkroom, I developed allergies to most of >the chemicals. I'm truly glad to be out of that dark, smelly >atmosphere. I get a headache just thinking about it! > >Tina ................................................................................ I forgot about that problem, and didn't mean to be insensitive. I've been lucky that B&W chemicals don't bother me. When I first got serious in photography, I worked on my college paper. The darkroom was in the basement next to an alley with NW exposure. We had a ventilation fan over the sink covered in black paper, but in the winter a breeze blew through it enough that sometimes when I came in for a printing session I had to push the first prints through a thin layer of ice as I processed them (and no RC then). As I made more prints, the chemicals would warm up from my fingers being in the solutions. The enlarger was broken too, so we had to use a "C clamp" to hold the negative stage up, parallel to the easel, for every different picture. Looking back, I think this rudimentary darkroom was good training in getting the most from limited resources. Love the smell of a fresh 100' roll of Tri-X; sweet compared to the acrid aroma of Agfa or Ilford films. Alan Alan Magayne-Roshak Senior Photographer Photo Services Univ. of Wis.- Milwaukee Information & Media Technologies amr3@uwm.edu http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alan+Magayne-Roshak/