Darkroom Day

Today I spent approximately 5 hours in the Darkroom . 5 hours. Of course if you've never worked in a darkroom before then that probably wouldn't seem like a long time. Even longer if you aren't the only person in there. There is nothing more stressful to a photography student (working traditionally) than being in a darkroom with other people who aren't being considerate or just simply have no idea what they are doing...

1. please please please LOWER THE BRIGHTNESS of your enlarger light if you are going to remove the negative carrier! (doing so stops other peoples paper being unintentionally exposed and reduces risk of blindness ha)

2. when you remove your print from the developing tray please be considerate and recognise the fact there may be someone stood behind you so don't flick it everywhere because that launches drops of developer which permanently stains clothes. just stop.

3. My goodness. If you place a print the size of Asia into the developing tray when other people also have prints in their please for the love of elephants don't let it float all over other peoples prints, this will ruin other people prints & possibly yours.

Think that's about it where my ranting is concerned...so here's my favourite's from today.

-Ella-

Darkroom

As I was searching through my old college books from last year I discovered some of my old darkroom work which really encouraged me even more so to continue shooting old school with film.

It's a totally different experience than shooting digitally and I recommend anyone who is into photography to try it especially if the opportunity to develop the photographs yourself arises rather than sending them to the local ASDA for somebody else to do.

I hope to one day have the chance to develop my own colour rolls as well as my black and white ones in a lab.

Here's some of my work:

The techniques I used for the first one: I burnt the negative with a lighter then used a scalpel to scratch into it then I created the print with a long exposure to create the high contrast.

Techniques used for the second:

I scratched the negative, A LOT. This photo is a silhouette of Jennii which I distressed by using a  scalpel and anything else I could find to scratch into it.

Techniques used for the third photo:

I didn't do anything to the negative in this case however after I had shot it and started to develop , I didn't put the photographic paper in the developer tray instead I put developer in a spray bottle and sprayed it on, concentrating on certain areas which created this bubble like appearance.

-Ella-