Jen Harris Blog On Photography

Help! Need a crash course in basic film photography/darkroom technique. 10 points!?

I am a 1st year photography major in college, and this semester I signed up for a film photography class where a very basic amount of darkroom knowledge was required. I have no previous experience with film photography and have never developed a roll of film before. I spoke with my professor, he says it won’t be impossible for me to do the course but I’ll have some catching up to do. He’s going to recommend some basic books for me and give me a little extra attention, but is there a good web site or resource where I can learn some of the basics myself first? Thanks!

They will probably start you on developing black and white photographs. Mainly because of costs because it takes less chemicals and less time to develop.

The Darkroom

A ‘darkroom’ is just that–a light-tight area where film can be handled without being exposed to light. It can be as large as a suite of rooms, or as small as changing bag. If you are at a big college then it is most likely there will be a large room with multiple enlargers, and a big area for developing the photographs They separate these two different areas with naming them; “wet area” – where photograph paper will go through three different chemical processes as well as a rinse bath of water, and a “dry area” where the negatives are exposed onto the specialist paper. As well as an room where you can put the roll of film into light-proof containers.

Film Processing Tanks

Roll film (35mm, 120, etc.) is almost always developed in “daylight tanks.” A daylight tank is light-tight: the film is loaded onto a reel in the dark, then the reel is placed in the tank, the cap is put on, and then the rest of the work can be done in daylight without fear of ruining the film. (The kind of tanks that are not light-tight have no caps, and they’re used for developing sheet film on hangars).

The film gets wound onto a reel in a spiral so that the film surfaces don’t touch. This allows the chemicals to cover all of the film surface.

Imaging Process

During exposure, values in the image can be adjusted, most often by “dodging” (reducing the amount of light to a specific area of an image by selectively blocking light to it for part or all of the exposure time) and/or “burning” (giving additional exposure to specific area of an image by exposing only it while blocking light to the rest). Filters, usually thin pieces of colored plastic, can be used to increase or decrease an image’s contrast (the difference between dark tones and light tones). After exposure, the photographic printing paper (which still appears blank) is ready to be processed.[4]

Photographers generally begin printing a roll of film by making a contact print of their negatives to use as a quick reference to decide which images to enlarge. Some large format photographers, such as Edward Weston, make only contact prints of their large (4×5″, 5×7″, 8×10″ or larger) negatives.

The paper that has been exposed is processed, first by immersion in a photographic developer, halting development with a stop bath, and fixing in a photographic fixer. The print in then washed to remove the processing chemicals and dried. There are a variety of other, additional steps a photographer may take, such as toning.

Here is a website I found for you that has a bunch of developing film techniques etc:

http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_4494_developing-film-darkroom.html

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