>

By Amy Davis


Photography is just so much fun that it is a hobby and art that people invest on. This have been around for a long time and the equipment has continued and continues to evolve. For those who have tried to take up any sort of art, you would know that any type of hobby would cost some money, especially if you want the best kind of equipment.

The most manual way of producing photos using film needs a specially constructed room. The darkroom is where negatives get developed and come out as beautiful images. Now you may think that there is little need for darkroom equipment these days since everything has gone digital. But there would always be the novelty of being able to process your photos the old fashion way.

There are many good reasons that film photography has been making a comeback lately. The reason could be preserving the art itself. With the number of digital software and applications, there would be little need to learn how to manually produce certain filters and effects that you want for certain photos.

Looking at the matter as an art, knowing how to develop these pictures without the help of a software takes a lot of skill and discipline. In hindsight, it makes you appreciate the presence of these digital solutions while learning a thing or two about the roots of photography. There are a good number of things that you would need to assemble your own darkroom.

Darkrooms for rent or borrowing may be available but making one, for those who really want to invest on it, can be quite rewarding. Many things need to be noted when it comes building these things. Temperature, light, and ventilation are the main concerns, above everything else. Expect that doing this may cost you some money.

The dynamic involved in this are basically the right concoction of light, ventilation and overall temperature. The circumstances where the photo is developed can greatly affect its outcome. Lots of water is needed to soak the prints, like how you would see it in the movies, but never really understood. Even the water in this process needs to be a specific temperature. Too hot or too cold and your image is well done for.

Four kinds of lighting is needed to setup the perfect darkroom. These would include the safelights, enlarger, white and no lights at all. When you start working with with minimal vision, that is when you would start to appreciate programs such as lightroom. The attention t detail and meticulousness needed for the process can be daunting.

While it may be called a darkroom, you would still need ordinary white florescent lighting because who can clean up any mess when you can't see anything, right. This is needed for choosing which negatives you would want to develop, inspecting finished print and basically seeing what is going on around you once you are done with staying in perpetual darkness.

Safe and enlarger lights are used when working with photographic paper since this needs to be handled with certain colored lights. The enlarger light is a specialized projector that can emphasize the transparency of the photo. Apart from the lighting, as mentioned earlier, temperature needs to be at a certain level. This is preferably at 65 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.




About the Author: