Death of the darkroom

“Just think! The filing cabinets could go here, the washing machine could go there and there'd be all this room opened up in your studio!”

Robin is way too upbeat.

I broke down my print drying rack this week, the first volley of the inexorable trajectory of the dismantling of my darkroom. This is a huge moment, and one I am having trouble emotionally incorporating. Never in my lifetime have I have been without access to a darkroom. Even during my transient twenties (I lived in over a dozen states) I managed to finagle access to or build rudimentary darkrooms in basements or bathrooms of rental houses. At age 53, I am contemplating, no, actually dismantling, a significant infrastructure of my professional and artistic life. Of my soul.

This was my dream darkroom. I have two handmade sinks, capable of holding a line of 20”x24” trays.  I have a custom table that holds the print washers. I have two Omega DII enlargers, one of which is my father's the one on which I grew up printing. I have a honking, heavy, huge dry mount press. I have separate light switches for the safelights and the room lights.

On Ebay this equipment worth nearly nothing. The space is going to become (no, it already is) a storage room.

I am having a long, self-indulgent, grief process.

What gives me perspective is Paul Butzi's experience. He has no regrets, as far as I can discern. He avers that digital printmaking is now superior in every respect to a wet process. I haven't his digital printmaking skills, but then, I haven't had a good, multi-day darkroom session in a couple of years, so those archaic skills have grown some serious rust. It is time. When I have a need to learn how to make spectacular prints again, it will be at a computer screen.

Sigh.

Comments

[John Taylor]

surely the dy mount press is still of use… i miss mine…
I know how you feel i haven't had a darkroom in ages (!!! 26 years!) and the prospect of lraening to make good black & white prints with an Inkjet are a bit daunting. I also miss Agfa Brovira paper. But i hear htere are some very nice papers out there so now i geuss i'll work on an ink budget instead of film.

[Billie]

I finally built my dream darkroom when we built a new house in 1999. We sold that house 2-1/2 years ago. But I had not used that darkroom in over a year when we sold the house. I do love the digital prints I can make after a long steep learning curve but I have to admit that every once in a while, I think about the joys of watching the print come up in the developer.

[Mike C.]

I feel your pain... I too loved the darkroom, but the first time I ran off a digital print, in multiple copies, with the lights on, whilst making the kids' evening meal at the same time, with each copy identical and perfectly spotted in advance, with better colour fidelity (and contrast control!) than I ever managed in years of stumbling around in total darkness... Now that was a revelation. I sold my enlargers within a month.

I still hesitate when opening a fresh pack of Epson paper, though, as my muscle memory is shrieking "Nooo!! The light is on!"

Try standing in a dark cupboard once a week, muttering "elephant one, elephant two..." for old time's sake. You'll soon get over it.