Good five hours spent on about ten prints – is it too much? Feels kinda like a proper work shift, maybe in the kitchen – legs and back hurt, little bit sweaty, good music and there’s something cooking in the pot.
Good chunk of time took preparing. From the start I found out developer has spilled all over my bottles of other chemicals, so I had to do some cleaning first. Then mix fresh chemicals and then set up my diy junk enlarger. That takes time.
I kept saying to myself – you wouldn’t have this with ink printer. You would just comfortably sit in your chair spitting out carefully edited and controlled prints. But why do things the simple way, when you can do them the hard and complicated way, right?
In the proper darkroom, with proper lights and space and ventilation and professional enlarger and all other equipment I imagine things are much more relaxed and seamless and fast. But in my little “cave” where everything is a little bit more complicated and messy, it just feels like I have to work a little bit harder, to get something.
And I even don’t know exactly what I am gonna get. I have no exposure timer, I often don’t test with strips and just guess and shoot whole paper. In those cases I let part of the control go, and watch what happens. I don’t always like the result, but I like it that way – there’s element of surprise.
Well, in the end, when I have my prints, I’m really tired and session is over after another half an hour of cleaning everything up, I feel like I did something. I like results and am happy I have them, but really the process is much more important and powerful. I feel like I achieved something and much more importantly like I experienced something very interesting and fulfilling.
And I keep saying to myself – you wouldn’t have this with ink printer.
