Where the darkrooms are
We have two darkrooms:
- Pleasance
- Kings Buildings: JCMB building, room 5305.
Getting access to the darkrooms
To get access to the darkrooms, you need to upgrade your white photosoc card to a green one (or a red if your committee member.) You can only upgrade your card once you have had a darkroom tutorial, with one our tutors, or have attended a refresher session if you a regular darkroom user. Once this is done you pay a small £2 fee, which covers the cost of running the darkrooms and which gives you unlimited access to both. This also allows you to book the darkroom in Pleasance or in KB; either passing by the Pleasance darkroom and using the sign up sheet on the door or by signing in at the reception in JCMB (Kings Building).
What you can do in our Darkrooms
Currently in the Photosoc Darkroom you can process and print B&W film on RC paper. We provide to our members all the basic chemicals needed for this: film developer (Ilfosol 3), paper developer (Ilford Multigrade), stop bath, film and paper fixer (Ilford Rapid Fixer.) We don’t provide free paper, but you can buy it from us at a discounted price. You can also print medium format, using 6*6 medium format negatives, with our larger format enlarger.
For more information on the developer please see the ilford page here.
At the moment Fiber Based printing and Toning are not supported by tutorials: however you can provide your own extra chemicals and know how and do it yourself! We are looking in to running more advanced tutorials teaching the basics of fibre printing, solarisation, toning and some basic developer-painting techniques, so we will keep you posted on this!
How to upgrade your card
If you’re member renewing your card, who had access to the darkroom last year, you need to attend a quick refresher session with a darkroom tutor (just in case any changes have occurred in dark room procedure, or we have any new equipment.) This only takes 5 minutes and is booked through the same channel as the darkroom tutorials. You then pay the usual £2 fee and we’ll give you a brand new green card.
If you’re not a renewing member, you’ll need to have a longer darkroom tuition. These are usually about an hour and half and go through all the basics of using a darkroom (film processing, using an englarger, developing prints etc)
To book tuition:
We will then email you directly to arrange a suitable time. But remember, there are only 3 or 4 of us giving tutorials, so it might take couple of weeks before your turn comes!
We will also be posting any spaces we have in upcoming tutorials in the weekly mailout that goes out to all members. Please keep an eye out and if your interested in those particular slots, contact us via the email addresses posted along with the mailout.
If you have any questions, please feel free to send an email to the society email address (put ‘darkroom queries’ in the subject box) or come up and talk to us directly at the tuesday meetings.
Read up on what you will be doing before you get to your tutorial. Our resident expert Remy has made an easy to follow film processing guide which you can view/download by following this link.
Your tutors for 2011 are:
- Alex Williams
- Antony Phin
- Joe Lee
- Lauren Bassam
