At last I've found the time to set up a dedicated darkroom space, its not ideal and its only temporary but for now I'm able to print some of my favourite photos, thank you lockdown for giving me this opportunity! A few years ago i was able to bag a ton of old darkroom equipment and paper from the daughter of a retired photographer. Now he retired back in the 70s so you can imagine how old this stuff is! Internet wise guys seem to agree mostly that old paper is next to useless but I've found that by treating it like expired film and subjecting it to more light i can get some acceptable results, these two images had about 90s under the enlarger and 2 or 3 minutes in the developing solution! Not bad for paper that i think could be as old as the 1950s. What the scans don't show is the lovely warm ivory tint but i will work on my scanning technique in for my next post. Oh yeah i have to figure out a better way of drying them flat!

Photographer:
charliedontsurf
Uploaded:
2020-04-08
Albums:
Surfing in Cornwall on film and Stone age printing.

5 Comments

  1. stereograph
    stereograph ·

    its magic, isn't it?

  2. charliedontsurf
    charliedontsurf ·

    @stereograph yes, its the missing link! Not easy though, this one was pretty simple as the negative had some good contrast and tones but I tried one tonight from one of my expired tasma rolls and the result wasn't as encouraging.

  3. stereograph
    stereograph ·

    @charliedontsurf Yeah, i know, sometimes its hard.
    especially if you try to print pulverantistic stuff.

  4. charliedontsurf
    charliedontsurf ·

    @stereograph exactly! I tried a couple of my kids portraits, the negs were a bit muddy and I found I had to dodge the faces to get some detail in them, not results that I'd care to share here lol.!

  5. captainfantastic
    captainfantastic ·

    :-)

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