Printing in my new darkroom

I finally got round to printing yesterday. I've been off work for two weeks which has obviously coincided with myself and my family self-isolating at home - in many ways a perfect opportunity to start printing again. After processing my first black and white film last week, I had been looking forward to printing negatives for the first time in over sixteen years.

It's funny, printing in a darkroom was once second nature to me. The process still feels familiar but putting everything into practise, it all felt a bit rusty. I had acquired the Fujimoto enlarger from work after their darkroom had became redundant and so I had to give myself a crash course in using that, combined with the Paterson timer. After mixing up the chemicals and deciding to print on 7 x 5 Ilford MGD Multigrade resin coated paper, I did my first test strip. The negatives seemed to be a bit flat, I think possibly there was a bit of fogging of the film when I was loading it in the developing tank....I will need to investigate further. Anyway, it was necessary to add more magenta in order to increase the contrast and I also had to increase the development time due to a decrease in temperature of the developer. As mentioned previously I have set up the darkroom in the garage and as it was a bright afternoon a small amount of light was coming through a small gap in the door, so that had to be sorted before I could carry on.

My teenage daughter came and gave me a hand after I asked if she wanted to see what I used to do in my other life. I'll never forget that magical feeling when I was about her age and seeing for the first time with my Dad an image appear on a piece of paper submerged in print developer. I showed her the different techniques from start to finish, including how to dodge and burn and she enjoyed the demonstration. She also had a go herself  and it felt satisfying sharing my knowledge with her this way. Her generation will never have experienced anything other than instant digital images and the mass sharing of countless pictures across the many types of social media.  

The negatives I printed were taken last year during a trip to London. We visited Borough Market which had been the scene of the terrorist attack in June 2017. When we visited two years later everything was back to normal and the market was bustling with people browsing the many speciality food stalls. Like many areas of London it had a very international feel to it and it reminded me of other countries I have visited and the kind of photography I used to enjoy doing.

Unfortunately my Nikon Coolscan negative scanner isn't working at the moment, so i have had to scan the prints directly on my printer scanner. The quality isn't the best by any means but I'm quite happy with the original prints, especially considering it's my first attempt for a long, long time. As my teachers at school used to say, there's always room for improvement.