On the road to printing myself

R

RML

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For some time now I've had my eye open for an enlarger. The cheaper the better, as I realise my daughter and I may not use it very extensively.

Well, today I got one! And for free! The man who got rid of it was offering it online for 25-30 euro but when I called him yesterday to make an appointment, he told me I could have it for free. He was more than happy to part with it for the sake and benefit of my daughter. :)

This summer vacation I hope to get some print-out paper first and make contact prints of some 6x6 and 6x9 negatives, just to get my daughter to understand what goes on, and to get her interested in the magic of printing.

Then I hope to go the whole hog, get some cheap photo paper, chemicals, get a small storage room light tight, and do some printing for real.
 
Fanatastic time to be looking to get into the dark. I've had a number of students get whole set-ups for free. In NYC my former business partner couldn't get anyone to buy the darkroom we had run- one of my students got to visit the big city and came home with a very nice 45MXT, lenses, trays, dev. cans & reels- the whole shebang.
 
There's certainly been no better time to buy darkroom equipment and enjoy the real magic of photography. Enjoy your new acquistion, Remy, and remember that light tight is relative. As long as no direct light is falling on the paper, a few pinholes in your "darkroom" doesn't matter.

POP is great fun. I recently found a cardboard sleeve among my mother's old photos advertising a daylight printing paper. The picture was of a suburban lady enjoying her afternoon tea while she put her contact frames out on the windowsill!
 
markinlondon said:
There's certainly been no better time to buy darkroom equipment and enjoy the real magic of photography. Enjoy your new acquistion, Remy, and remember that light tight is relative. As long as no direct light is falling on the paper, a few pinholes in your "darkroom" doesn't matter.
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That's good to know. I have a bathroom without windows (just one over the door to the hall, which can be covered up). And I have a laundry room, also without windows (but again the one over the door). I can cover these windows and have a nigh totally dark area. The bathroom may be a better place to start out as it has running water, but the laundry room has a electric outlet for the enlarger.


POP is great fun. I recently found a cardboard sleeve among my mother's old photos advertising a daylight printing paper. The picture was of a suburban lady enjoying her afternoon tea while she put her contact frames out on the windowsill!
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That's exactly what I had in mind too. I can already imagine my little girl keeping a watchful eye on the paper to see the image appear. :)
 
sepiareverb said:
Fanatastic time to be looking to get into the dark. I've had a number of students get whole set-ups for free. In NYC my former business partner couldn't get anyone to buy the darkroom we had run- one of my students got to visit the big city and came home with a very nice 45MXT, lenses, trays, dev. cans & reels- the whole shebang.
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Yes, We got an Optimus enlarger with Nikon lens, a box of multigrade filters, trays, a stainless steel dev tank for 1 135 film, thermometers, a red light and a few bits and bobs that may see more or less action. And all that for free. Cool.
 
That should make for great fun. My daughter has shown some interest in the little Rollei 35- and loves to photogram with odd bits of photo paper- one of these days she'll finish the roll and we can run it.
 
Photograms seem like pretty good fun too. I'll keep it in mind.

POP is really versatile. :)
 
RML.. I don't have an enlarger but I made mini contact prints out of 6x6 photo paper and developed them in cups of coffee last night. They were foggy and I probably should have used some real developer, but it was a total blast! I'll scan some in this week.
 
Remy, that's great to hear! You and your daughter will have fun with that. I was a bit sad when you seemed to go completely over to digital. Passing on darkroom alchemy at least to our children, is somehow a noble thing to do IMO.
 
The more you want to print yourself, the less GAS you get. You'll tend to focus on getting the shot right and printing it right. But then again, there is darkroom gas.
 
ibcrewin said:
RML.. I don't have an enlarger but I made mini contact prints out of 6x6 photo paper and developed them in cups of coffee last night. They were foggy and I probably should have used some real developer, but it was a total blast! I'll scan some in this week.
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Did you ever get to scanning them? I'd love to seem them.
 
FrankS said:
Remy, that's great to hear! You and your daughter will have fun with that. I was a bit sad when you seemed to go completely over to digital. Passing on darkroom alchemy at least to our children, is somehow a noble thing to do IMO.
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Frank, my own DR experience is limited to a few hours at high school. It was fun but it didn't grab me by the b*lls, really. :)

But since I started to do my own developing in caffenol, I've become more interested in printing too. I'll start off with the POP and some regular printing but I may go experimental in the near future. :)
 
It's really good to know that you are setting up the darkroom to use with your daughter. After taking a printing class last summer, I started gathering the printing equipment for my own darkroom (been developing film at home for 2 years). This past weekend I finally had the time to make some prints, and I'm really happy with a few of the results. Now that I've got a handle on things in the darkroom, I've been thinking of getting my son, who is five, to join me. Have fun!
 
Nice to see people including their children in the process, i know that is how I got hooked. Can't wait to have my own kids to pass it along.....
 
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