Darkroom? It's possible to be negative and positive about it.

The key requirement for building a darkroom is that it must be DARK. Lightproof. No light.

Light is what exposes film and paper. Light is the stuff from which photography art is created. So, control the light that exposes your film and your paper--by allowing only the light you intentionally wanted to expose the film or paper. This means no other light. Have I beaten this point to death already? No Light. Dark. Definition of "dark room".

Next good requirement: Water and drainage. Always helpful for developing film and paper. Nowadays it might not be as easy as it was back in the "dark ages". With all the pollution and environmental laws out there, you must be careful not to pour the used chemicals down the drain without filtering or preparing the off-flow for "hazardous waste disposal". It's not that hard, but it is a factor you must consider. Be sure to check with your city's ordinances before you go to the trouble of setting up a darkroom. Yes, it is possible for a city to track where pollutants come into their drainage system--so check before you get your darkroom going.

Another requirement is electricity source. Do you have at least ONE two-socket electrical outlet in the place you've chosen for your darkroom? If not, you might have some problems.

My first darkroom was in a large bathroom in a house that had two of them (bathrooms, that is. So folks could still respond when nature called without having a negative reaction from the darkroom guy).

The bathroom was a perfect place for my darkroom. It had only one door and no window. So eliminating light leakage was relatively easy. It had ample water and drain availability. And, it had TWO double-socket electrical outlets.

I used a 4X8 plywood board cut-to-size to fit over the top of the bathtub (and leaving an opening so stuff could be stored underneath) to be my "workarea". I ran an extension cord from the outlet over the bathroom mirror to a powerstrip for my enlarger, exposure timer, and safelight. And... I had a garden hose that I used to transfer water from the sink over to the trays I had set up on the board over the bathtub. When all lights were off, the bathroom was made dark by pushing a dark towel against the bottom of the door. Insulating strips on the door-edges kept the rest of the light out.

Key point here: I didn't have to paint the room black or any other weird thing. "Dark" in this sense does NOT imply color--it implies NO LIGHT. So, if the lights are off, it shouldn't matter if the walls are painted white or pink or light blue. It doesn't matter. If there's no light--you won't be able to SEE ANYTHING. That's why it's called a "dark room".

So, this describes a basic, in-home darkroom set-up.

After I had built (or assembled) three darkrooms in three separate homes (after subsequent moves to new locations)... I was working at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory as a student research aide (and doing a lot of the photography for them)--the scientists and professors and researchers at the lab started fussing that they'd like to have an on-site darkroom (rather than having to drive up the hill and over to the main campus science building photolab). I volunteered to design, help build, set-up, and run the photolab.

Because I had been sort of an "intern" at the Guam Naval Hospital clinical photolab in addition to being a hotel and magazine photographer/photolab technician, I had experience in high-volume, commercial-style labs. I knew what I wanted for the marine lab.

After I got approval and a potential location in the existing warehouse-like building with the necessary utility connections from the Marine Lab admins, I sketched out some plans on drafting paper (so I could match up the grid to dimensions). The admins had limited me to an enclosed corner of the top-level graduate-student wing of the main building.

Concrete floors, reinforced cinderblock walls, and so on. The marine technicians (techs) took my sketches and turned them into plans for the darkroom. They estimated the amount of plywood boards, 2X4 framing planks, floor-tiles, conduit, wiring, plumbing, and so on that we'd be needing based on what I had planned. Because I explained where I'd be placing the enlarger, stabilization processor, print dryer, paper-processing trays, rinse baths, safelight, film processing equipment, and other gear, they were able to match the sketches with the plans and be more accurate with their estimates. Then, after getting the purchase order from the lab admin, they brought the materials down to the lab with their flat-bed truck.

So... the first key in building a dark room is to spec' it out. Figure out how much room you need, where you want your equipment based on your workflow (you use the enlarger first, then the developer bath, then the stop bath, then the fixer, then the rinse, then the dryer, and so on).

Based on what I had seen at the Navy Hospital, the main UOG campus Science Building lag, and the hotel photolab, I wanted ready access (no doors) to the lab--so folks could come and go from the lab without using a door and without disturbing the "dark" of the darkroom. This had been included in my sketch.

Next step. Build it.

We first cleaned up the area--it was about a 20-ft by 20-ft corner of the second-floor of the concrete and cinder-block building. We swept up all the accumulated dust and removed all the other things (it had been used as a storage area for aquariums and parts, equipment bicycles, and other things). Then, using a piece of chalk, we drew on the existing walls and floor the outline of where we'd want the walls, the counters, the cabinets, the electrical fixtures, and so on.

The lab techs decided much of the particulars about various dimensions for the walls and counters--basing it on their experience with building houses and lab rooms according to "code".

The lab techs cut the framing for the walls and the cabinet pieces based on their measurements and chalk marks on the walls and floors. Then they fastened the frame base pieces to the concrete floor with bolts. Then they mounted the framing to the base pieces. After putting in the conduit, wiring, and socket for the light switch, the techs mounted the plywood wall boards to the frame. Two-by-four support beams stretched across from the cinder-block wall to the tops of the wall-frames across the photolab. Conduit was run between the roof beams to provide for the overhead fluorescent light fixture. The roof was then sealed with boards over the top and underneath to form the ceiling of the darkroom.

It was time to paint. I had to argue about the paint color choices. The techs wanted to paint the whole room and entryway flat black (it was a "dark room", right? I had to prove that when we turned off the lights, it didn't matter WHAT color the walls were. Eventually I had my way. Not only did we paint the walls and ceiling white, but we added white Formica to the countertops and the water-drain table and white deep-sink. The entry way, however, we DID paint flat black--both the walls and the ceiling. After painting the room, we laid the medium-blue tiles on the floor and sealed the floor. In completion, we hung double-layer black-fabric ceiling-to-floor curtains at both ends of the entryway (at a perpendicular angle).

We brought in, assembled, and set up the Besseler 23-C Enlarger. Then came in the stabilization processor, the 3 11X14 developing trays, the safe-light, the print-dryer, the stainless-steel film developing tanks with steel film reels. The film clips, tongs, thermometer, exposure timer, and focusing tool. Boxes of photopaper and Kodak Tri-X and Plus-X film were added to the supplies.

The new photolab made production of images for the marine-lab technical reports much more efficient and effective. Photos could be made very quickly--sometimes we'd shoot a picture, immediately develop the film (about 4 minutes with Tri-X), expose the enlargement while the film was still wet, and run an 8X10 through the stabilization processor to have a dry photo within 15 minutes.

Photos could be made to certain specifications (sizes, contrasts, and so on) to fit the requirements of lab technical reports, scientific journal articles, and general audience newspaper and magazine articles and news releases, lab research projects, and other documents.

For particularly large photo needs, such as aerial photos for mapping studies, we swiveled the Besseler enlarger head to focus across the room to the opposite wall on which we taped large 48" wide photopaper cut from a roll. To develop the paper, we'd lay the paper on the tile floor, sponge on the Dektol developer, then sponge on the Stop bath, and finish with sponging on the Fixer. After sponging on the final solution, we'd place the paper in a large aquarium filled with fresh water (no fish, of course) for the rinsing part of the process. Then we hung the paper on a clothes-line in the main room to allow it to dry.

The new photolab also enabled us to develop Kodak Ektachrome transparencies that were used to make color plates in journal articles and color images for scientific presentations.

However, with digital cameras and Adobe Photoshop, you don't need to fool around with messy and polluting chemicals, water, or dark rooms. So... if you are willing to sit in front of a computer and learn how to use a powerful set of software tools, you can still exercise your artistic expression. And you won't have to get chemical stains on your clothes and you won't have a funky chemical smell.

And... you'll be able to keep the lights on.

I still love photography as a hobby. And with digital cameras and a computer, I can get instant images for various uses.

After recently buying Adobe Photoshop, I'm now trying to teach myself how to use this awesome program. It's a lot of fun to play with this software (and you can find some of it offered in the module below).

If you don't have Adobe Photoshop, go ahead and make the plunge... it's like having a darkroom without taking up a bathroom or stinking up the house with chemicals!