In January, I published a virtual photo album with photos from Kyushu, Chūgoku, and Kansai that I shot entirely on black and white film. While the digital album is convenient for sharing, I wanted to have physical prints as well. This project became my main motivation for building a darkroom at home. After eight months of occasional darkroom sessions, I’m sitting with a stack of 104 gelatin silver prints on my table and a strong feeling of accomplishment. It was my first long printing project, so I wanted to share a few things I learned.
First of all, if you are new to darkroom printing, do not start with massive projects. Experiment more! When I set up my enlarger, I was so excited that I jumped straight into printing my favorite photos from this project. The issue was that I began on Foma paper, but after two packs I switched to Ilford. Foma paper is perfectly fine, but my Ilford multigrade filters are calibrated for Ilford paper and behave less predictably on Foma. The Foma paper I used has a colder tone, while Ilford has a warmer one. I also began with glossy paper, but later realized that I prefer a pearl finish. As a result, my project is inconsistent. About thirty percent of the photos are on one paper stock and the rest on another. It’s not a big deal, but I could have avoided it by experimenting more with negatives from local photowalks before committing to the long project.
Another important factor is planning. I started without any real scope in mind. I was simply excited to see my photos come to life on paper. My approach was chaotic. I would look at five photos I like and decide to print them that night. After a while the initial excitement shifted to worry, and I began to feel as if the work would never end. Even though I became faster as I gained experience, finishing seven prints in a session felt like very little compared to the twenty sheets of negatives in my binder.
Back in the day, photographers printed contact sheets from negatives first to select which photos to enlarge. I relied on scans instead. Some people still work with contact sheets, but I decided to skip them. To fit an entire roll of film, I need two sheets of 7 by 9.5 inch photo paper. That would have taken extra time and increased costs. My darkroom has limited space, so that is practically the largest paper size I can use right now. I know contact sheets can help diagnose problems with negatives, such as over or under development, and help decide on the multigrade filter for printing. However, after some practice, I learned to do this by looking at the negatives themselves. As for selecting photos, it’s much easier to use scans on a large screen than to sit with a magnifying glass over contact sheets.
Photographers often mark their contact sheets to make decisions, and at some point, I started doing the same in Lightroom. The catalog there allows to add color labels to photos. I went through all the scans and marked the photos I wanted to print with a yellow label and the ones I’ve printed with green. This method helped me define the scope of the project and track how many photos were left, allowing me to plan my darkroom sessions efficiently.
Another thing I learned is that there is no need to bathe test strips in fixer for a full minute or two like prints. Since I do not care about their long-term storage and discard them after the final print is done, I save time by turning on the light for inspection after just five to ten seconds of fixing the test strips.
I also ran into a situation where my developer became exhausted. Even though manufacturers may claim that it’s good enough to develop a certain number of square meters of photo paper, this data usually applies to batch processing within a single day. If you print occasionally and reuse developer, it can get exhausted from exposure to air while sitting in a tray during the sessions. When the developer’s color starts to resemble a cup of black tea, it’s a good sign to mix fresh chemistry. Otherwise, prints begin to look dull and fail to reach the maximum black.
Even though I’ve done some mistakes and my prints aren’t perfect, I can’t wait to show them to my friends!