A series about the darkroom. Geared for getting to a place of process, and procedure. This begins with few assumptions about your skill. I do assume your interest in the darkroom as part of a studio practice.

The first parts will be about the print, not the negative. There, ruined the mystery: we start at the end.

First,  we will get wet, but will use protection. This can get messy. This will stain.

I won’t give a full course in this set of posts. Too hard to do over the phone, and I don’t know who will ever use these notes. They are taken from some of my scraps of courses I taught at Syracuse University. You have the advantage of easy availability of other sources of knowledge. Cheap and easy – like locker room advice on acne, or jock itch.

What we will do:

• Mix chemistry for B&W
• Choose papers
• Make some prints

Easy, simple. What took a morning of lab day, back in EXS. Every freshman knew how to develop and print film within the first week. Some took easily to it. Most stumbled and recovered. Others never understood the process – usually faltering over the mechanics. Those are the students who needed the digital age. Too bad they were learning at its birth (1975). I hope they have returned to photography now that the mechanical barriers have been removed. Photography is now accessible.

Coming