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Advice on setting up a Homemade Darkroom!
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Hi Everyone,
I hope you are able to help me. I am considering at some point setting up a Darkroom at home and have looked online and came across diagrams about setting one up. But I wanted to know from peoples experience the do’s and don’t’s of doing it properly. Set up in a garage? An unused bedroom? Get something set up in back garden (Shed)? Anything? Am asking about any information that would be helpful! If you can it would be great! :)You can set one up anywhere if you are determined enough.
I recently helped set one up for my brother in a spare toilet. The room is only about 7Ft x about 4ft and it works perfectly for printing upto 9.5×12 and even has a quick wash under the wet side. he then transfers prints to the bathroom where he uses one of Patersons rocking washers.
Bit hard to use the toilet now though unless you can fold youself in half!
I have one I set up each time to print and take down when I’m finished. I have it in my bedroom as I have running water in here. I spent ages looking for blackout curtains online, and they were all really expensive. Then out of desperation I tried Hickeys thinking they’d never have any, but they did. They had huge rolls of the stuff, and said a lot of people bought it so it was way cheaper than I was seeing online. It cuts out light perfectly, with only a bit of light showing through where I seal it. So I double it over and stick it down with double layered gaffer tape. Don’t be fooled by people claiming you need the expensive stuff. Loads of people need to blackout light completely outside of photography (shift workers, doctors and nurses, etc.) and there’s a lot of demand for it in good fabric shops.
The other bit of advice I’d have is try out the tables you rest everything on. At the moment I’m using extremely sturdy boxes for resting my dev trays on, and that’s confirmed to me that unless they’re at the exact right height you’ll be in for an awful lot of trouble. You’ll be spending at least five minutes rocking those dev trays each time you develop a print, so if you’re stooped over too much, or they’re too high for you, your back will start to hurt after a while. The better the height of the table for you, the longer you’ll be able to spend in your dark room doing the actual printing. I’ve turned down a couple of offers of tables all because they’re the wrong height. Comfort and ease of use should be high on your priority list. If you’re not comfortable you won’t do as much printing as you’d like to.
Thank you so much everyone for your replies back. Great to see other experiences and opinions. thefizz am based in Dundalk. I just wanted to see what people thoughts were on it. I learned Black & White printing at college. Bit rusty at the moment though. I even bought an Moetpa Enlarger 5a on ebay. £70 and is great condition. So am thinking ahead. Would love to be able to set up at home. I think i had been in touch with yourself about Darkroom Classes.
I’ve had darkrooms in my utility room, spare room, attic and now in a warehouse. All were easy to set up although the current one is very well kitted out. There was a thread not too long ago called “show us your darkroom” I think. Have a look at it as some members showed pics of their darkrooms so it may give you ideas. Drop down to me any time and I’ll run through everything with you.
thefizz – Yeah am just after noticing that thread now. I’d love to get one set up. Thank you for the invite. Hopefully I will get some free time and I’ll be in touch to call over to Trim to see your set up. It would be a great insight.
Any room with water and waste plumbing and a powerpoint is a good start. Am also happy to help; not sure where you are though.
best,
CYeah i was thinking that straight away. Water, waste and power supply. It’s good starting point. Cheers all.
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