I haven’t been in a real darkroom in more than 10 years. Lack of darkroom facilities was a leading factor in the long vacation I took from photography. A couple of years ago I bought a changing bag; bathrooms have been my darkrooms ever since. I’m on my 5th bathroom/darkroom, and I’ll probably have another in next few months. Here’s a couple of things I’ve learned along the way:

1. Liquid chemistry is your friend. When you have no permanent facilties for mixing up large batches of powder - which are the only size powder batches worth mixing - you learn that saving a few cents buying powders isn’t really worth it.
2. Under the heading of every rule has its exceptions, Diafine is the easiest developer to use under adverse conditions. It deserves a place in every darkroom/bathroom.
3. It’s often easier to bring chemicals up to a higher temperature than it is to lower their temp down. Even in an apartment only a few degrees above freezing, a pan of hot tap water can bring all your chemistry up to 75 degrees pretty quickly.
4. There’s no such thing as a too big changing bag. Buy the biggest you can find.
5. Nalgene bottles are convenient for storage and mixing.
6. Pyrex measuring cups are also great for measuring and mixng. Just make sure you don’t use the same one for making cookies.
7. Dust and crummy water are your enemies. Hang your negs in the shower or other enclosed place. Develop and wash with distilled or bottled water. The cheap bottled water seems to work the best.
8. Rubbing alcohol is almost a good a surfactant as PhotoFlo, and it nevers leaves a residue on your negs.
9. With a roll of gaffers tape you can rig up a way to hang negs just about anywhere. Unlike duct tape, gaffers tape won’t pull the paint off your walls.
10. One of those pocket knives with a scissors and a bottle opener on opposite ends of the knife makes a really nice tool for cracking cannisters and cutting negs.
11. Real men use stainless steel reels, but the rest of use plastic autoloading reels. Loading stainless steel reels in a rubberized bag in 95 degree heat is a special kind of hell to be avoided at all costs.

I keep telling myself that I’m going to come up with a cool way to pack up all my darkroom kit into something self-contained. Maybe a pelican case or an old hard sided suitcase. Ideally the scanner would fit in their as well. Maybe for darkroom/bathroom version 7.


fresh from the basement bathroom, just hours ago