Ye Olde Marrickville Darkroom and Lab

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Alastair Moore
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Location: Darwin, Australia
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Ye Olde Marrickville Darkroom and Lab

Postby Alastair Moore » 19 Jan 2013, 16:24

Just been down to our darkroom in progress and Jack, one of the crew, with his father have started (and mostly finished) our workbench and enlarger table. Progress is coming along great - the sink will be built on Wednesday, we'll be painting the walls next weekend, we have complete light-tighting it and fitting the extractor fan and we should be more or less close to completion! It's very exciting.

We went to Reverse Garbage in Marrickville on a tip off that there was an enlarger and some trays available. The enlarger was probably not good (no lens, no carrier, bellows full of holes) but the trays were perfect! So we're now the proud new owners of three 24x20" trays which cost us a lofty $5 each.

Here's a few photos showing progress.

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Maris
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Location: Noosa

Re: Ye Olde Marrickville Darkroom and Lab

Postby Maris » 20 Jan 2013, 11:05

Looks good! Now don't forget the key items: a reverse cycle airconditioner and a good stereo sound system. Whatever the climatic extremes a well ordered darkroom can be a truly pleasant place to work in. If you are going to spend hundreds of hours in there you deserve nothing less.

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Alastair Moore
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Posts: 668
Joined: 26 Jul 2012, 09:29
Location: Darwin, Australia
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Re: Ye Olde Marrickville Darkroom and Lab

Postby Alastair Moore » 21 Jan 2013, 09:42

Maris wrote:Looks good! Now don't forget the key items: a reverse cycle airconditioner and a good stereo sound system. Whatever the climatic extremes a well ordered darkroom can be a truly pleasant place to work in. If you are going to spend hundreds of hours in there you deserve nothing less.


Yep, totally! The air conditioner might have to wait but a sound system will be essential!

And our almost-complete darkroom sink.

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We're going to build wedges into it so when the sink is mounted on a slight gradient to help funnel the water out, the trays will remain horizontal and flat. It'll be big enough to print 24" x whatever photographs.

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Maris
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Joined: 27 Jul 2012, 16:02
Location: Noosa

Re: Ye Olde Marrickville Darkroom and Lab

Postby Maris » 21 Jan 2013, 16:35

Alastair, don't wait too long to put the air-con in. Remember that absolutely over-the-top heatwave day we've just had. I escaped by going into the darkroom early and coming out late. Just to celebrate the concept of cool I made this:

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Anzac Day Snow, Charlotte Pass.
Gelatin-silver photograph on Ultrafine Silver Eagle VC FB photographic paper, image size 21.4cm X 16.3cm, from an 4x5 Arista.Edu.Ultra 400 negative rated EI 200 exposed in a Tachihara 45GF large format field view camera fitted with a Nikkor-W 210mm f5.6 lens.
Titled and signed recto, stamped verso.

Don't worry, it's not all sybaritic indulgence here. The next day was hot as well but the other half of the photographic team insisted she had to have the darkroom for her 4x5 negs. So I watched the TV tennis in the heat.

jars121
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Joined: 29 Jul 2012, 21:56

Re: Ye Olde Marrickville Darkroom and Lab

Postby jars121 » 22 Jan 2013, 17:13

The sink was installed today :)

Those trays are 21x26" which should be more than enough for most of the printing we plan on doing :)

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