Developing in the darkroom

To develop light sensitive paper you need a light safe and well ventilated room, developing chemicals, and a place to dry the paper. Darkrooms come in all shapes and sizes depending on where they are, who is using them, and how much developing is needed. Below are a few examples of some darkrooms.

Photo borrowed from Fresno State

Photo Borrowed from Joe McCarthy

Click this photo for further information about making a darkroom at home

Supplies needed to process b/w photography paper

Miss Kippy turned her bathroom into a darkroom by covering the door on both sides with blankets. This blocks out enough light to process the light sensitive paper. 
Below are the trays filled with developer, stop bath, and fixer. 

The process of developing pictures is as follows. First turn off all the lights except for the safety light. (The safety light is a light safe for the photo paper to be around) Second take out the photo and place in the developer. The developer takes 1-2 minutes to do it's job. After the developer the print must go straight into the stop bath to cease developing. The print stays in here for up to 1 minute. Next the print goes in to the fixer for about 5 minutes. After the fixer the print must stay in a water wash for 5-10 minutes. Once done washing, hang the print up til fully dry. Below is a short video of the developing process.

Photo of print in Fixer waiting to be moved to wash

Photo of Print in final wash

Prints hanging to be dried

In the next coming post I will be posting the students pinhole paper negatives and their inverted images. Also if anyone is interested I will be making a blog post on how to aquire supplies for pinhole camera photography and sunprints. 
​-Kippy