Setting up my darkroom

When I was about 15 years old, my Dad got me interested in photography. We had a toilet under the stairs and we set up a little darkroom in there. The trays were precariously positioned on a board across the toilet and you used to have to kneel down in front of the developer, stop and fixer trays to process the paper. I still can't remember where the enlarger would have gone, presumably on the board. Not ideal by any standards but it was a start. I was hooked. Later, we set up in the spare room, much better with considerably more room and also we could both go in there at the same time !

 A few years later when I was 21 I joined the RAF as a Photographer and did my training at the Joint School of Photography at RAF Cosford. Here I was trained in many aspects of photography, including developing and printing and where I had access to the very best in facilities. A far cry from the balancing act in our downstairs loo.

After I left the RAF and when I bought my first house, I set up a darkroom in my spare room. I even had a plumber friend of mine install hot and cold water into a large industrial sink which had been removed from a steel works in Rotherham. I would print my 35mm and medium format negatives taken on my travels right through the night sometimes, unaware of the time sometimes.

After the birth of our first child the darkroom became the nursery and the developer trays in the large sink were replaced by a baby bath....ideal for bath time. This was about sixteen years ago and coincided with me buying my first digital camera, again perfect for the hundreds upon hundreds of images taken of our young daughter and later on my son who was born two years later.

Recently I got thinking about negatives and printing again. Although I had sold my Mamiya 645 camera, I had still kept by Olympus OM1n and OM2n, in addition to acquiring an OM4ti. I had also kept all my darkroom equipment, kept in storage in my parents basement. So, much to their relief I have dug it all out and set up a darkroom in my garage. Although not quite as well equipped as the spare room in my old house, it is perfectly adequate. There is no hot water in there so I have made a print washer out of a large plastic storage box and plastic piping and this then connects to the shower in the bathroom. I like to print on fibre based paper so a continuous water replenishment is needed.

I haven't yet finished the roll of Ilford FP4 Plus film currently in the OM4ti. When I do I will process it, mix up a batch of developer and resume a hobby of mine which I never thought I would ever go back to. I can't wait......

Here's the first video of a very informative new series on darkroom printing from Ilford Photo :