Okay, now the images are captured, either on film or digitally. The next step is to get them ready for proofing. Sticking with the mainstream process of 35mm black and white roll film, a typical set of steps is as follows:
- Dilute the developer to working strength.
- Run a 68° water bath.
- Put the developer, stop, fix, hypo clear solutions in the water bath.
- Arrange the Nikor tanks, lids, and reels on the dry side of the darkroom.
- Turn off the lights.
- Use a church key to open the 35mm cartridges.
- Throw the cap where you think the wastebasket is.
- Take out the film.
- Throw the rest of the cassette where you think the wastebasket is.
- Find the scissors.
- Cut the leader off the film. Throw it in the general direction of the wastebasket.
- Find a reel.
- Wind the film onto the reel.
- Find the scissors.
- Cut the plastic film spool core off the film.
- Throw the core where you think the wastebasket is.
- Find the tank.
- Put the reel in the tank.
- Load all the other reels.
- Find the lid.
- Put the lid on the tank.
- Turn on the lights.
- Check the temperature of the chemicals.
- Fill the tank with 68° water.
- Bang the tank several times on the sink to dislodge air bubbles.
- Shake the tank vigorously.
- Wait a minute.
- Pour the water into the dump trough.
- Fill the tank with developer.
- Invert four or five times, twisting your wrist just so. Do that every 30 or 60 seconds, depending upon the developing time, until the film is developed.
- Pour the developer into the dump trough.
- Fill the tank with stop bath.
- Agitate, wait a minute, pour the stop bath into the dump trough.
- Fill the tank with fixer.
- Agitate once a minute until the film is fixed, then pour the fixer into the dump trough or back into the bottle.
- Open the tank, fill with 68° water. It’s OK to peek at this point.
- Set up the film washer.
- Wash the film for 20 minutes. While this is going on, find all the things that you threw at the wastebasket that missed, and put them in the wastebasket.
- Soak the film in hypo neutralizer for 3 minutes
- Wash the film for another 10 minutes.
- Put away all the chemicals and drain the sink.
- Prepare a dilute solution of Photo Flo
- Put the reels in the Photo Flo solution.
- Put the film squeegee in the Photo Flo solution.
- Take the reels out one by one.
- For each reel
- unspool the film, and throw the reel in the sink
- squeegee the excess water off the film and into the sink (if you’re skillful and lucky) and/or onto the floor (if you’re not)
- hang up the film, attaching a weighted film clip to the free end.
- Leave the darkroom for at least 6 hours.
- Cut the negatives into strips.
- Put the negatives into sleeves or plastic pages.
- Rinse the reels and put them away to dry.
- Clean the floor and the sink.
To get to an equivalent point with digital, you’d do something like this:
- Turn off the camera.
- Take out the memory card.
- Plug the memory card into the computer.
- Copy the files to a directory on your hard drive.
- Start Lightroom.
- Bring up the import dialog.
- Point it at the right directory.
- Assign key words.
- Import.
- Close Lightroom.
- Eject the memory card reader.
- Remove the memory card and keep it safe until you’re sure the files on the hard drive are backed up.
The chemical way of doing things is a lot more work. It’s also more tactile and kinesthetic. Grace and economy of movement make a difference in loading the Nikor reels and agitating while the film is in the developer. If I’d have used Jobo reels in the example, there would be only one grace-rewarding activity, since it’s so easy to load Jobo reels.
Neither activity requires any creativity. There’s no way to do a great job of developing film; there is only the avoidance of making an error. There is no way to do a fantastic job of copying files; there is just the avoidance of damaging them. There is much more left brain, calculating, precise activity required in film processing. To my way of thinking, this more than compensates for the right-brain kinesthetics of film processing.
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