I grew up with a darkroom in our basement laundry room because my mother was a freelance photographer. I spent some of the happiest hours of my childhood and teen years cooped up in that creepy little cobwebby room with my mom, friends, film and chemicals, damaging more than a few brain cells in the process, I'm sure. I wouldn't take those brain cells back, though. The smell of photographic fixer makes me extremely happy, and I get a little jolt of excitement whenever I walk into a photo lab that still (omg) processes film. Sadly, Mom's Photo Lab was dismantled to make way for the new millennium, and a new, much nicer, less cobwebby basement.
I recently got back into shooting film, and I'm feeling underwhelmed by the negatives I've gotten back from a few places. So why not just do it myself at home? I've done it before, probably hundreds of times, and sure it's been 14 years, but there's no reason I can't do it again, right? All you need are a few pieces of equipment, and you're good to go. You can't find a lot of this stuff easily anymore, but thanks to internet shopping - namely B&H (I love you!) - it is still available, and even if you live in Canada, it arrives in your jonesing hands four days later. So, I got a tank just like the one I used as a kid and a pile of chemicals. Oh how I itched to use it all right away, but there was one crucial element I didn't have: a roll or two of exposed black and white film to process! So, I dragged my daughter, my friend and her kid down to the lakeshore, and my husband the next day. I shot a roll of Ilford Delta 400 on my Nikon FE, and a roll of Ilford Delta 100 on my Mamiya C220, so I'd have a roll of 35mm and a roll of 120 to play with. Hooray!
Processing the film was super fun. It took me forever to mix everything up and get my developer (Kodak D76) the right temperature, using a fussy tea thermometer (proper photographic thermometer = better idea).
I made a big mess. I later wrote, "Fixer! DO NOT DRINK!" all over the Bacardi bottle, just in case somebody in the mood for a little tropical island getaway stumbles upon it some Friday night, thinking they've discovered my secret stash. It's probably not the best storage container, but until I get more fun brown bottles from B&H, it will have to do. I mostly just wanted to show off my awesome kitchen styling in the above photo. My set-up is probably a perfect illustration of how not to do things, now that I look at it.
Pulling my processed negatives off the reel was magical. As a kid I loved that moment only second to the one when an image slowly started to appear on a white sheet of photo paper sloshing around in a tray of developer. That best moment has been replaced by a negative scanner and my Mac, but hey, there's still something magical about it.
Now I'm starting to think about processing my own color film...
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