A family friend who is a professional photographer asked me if Hive13
would be interested in him donating his dark room equipment. I do not
know how much equipment it is, how much space it would take up, etc. I
believe it would be a complete setup.
I definitely think that would be cool, and have a mild interest in it,
but not the interest or energy that would be needed to spearhead a
project like that. I do think this would be an asset in attracting more
members, since having one's own dark room is fairly expensive, while
membership here is not so much.
I can already see immediate obstacles, most blatantly space. Probably
also... /Ventilation/.
This email is just meant to be a temperature check to see if there's any
critical mass of interest.
I say pass on this. Why?
Minimum space for a cramped dark room is roughly 6’ x 6’,
It needs to be totally dark. Not just walled, Light sealed. Plus switches for red-lights inside and out, outlets for enlarger(s)
It needs to be clean and DUST FREE. Nothing like dust either wood or moon or chemical from developer spills to ruin either film or enlargements. Where in Hive13 is dust free?
It needs to be ventilated.
Who of you actually wants to build the darkroom and keep it dust free? If you do then build it in your house and accept the equipment donation.
Now ask yourself,
WHY is this equipment being given away? Ask the donors why.
Who actually uses wet film photography NOW? If you can find someone actually still doing it, go see them and ask them to tell you about their setup.
Why did Kodak go bankrupt? Rochester NY used to have miles of photography film factories. They are all gone now.
There is technology that is dead but hasn’t fallen over yet, And there is technology that is dead, but you can still find the bodies lying around.
Wet photography is rapidly passing from the first stage to the second.
Every one of the professional photographers I’m aware of have evolved from film to digital as long as ten years ago.
Just like we gave up VHS video recorders and 3.5 inch floppy disks.
Yes I’d like to get a list or see what it in the setup.
The enlargers can do some cool stuff separate from developing film. I’d be interested in maybe some non photography uses of the equipment.
I probably agree on not doing the wet chemistry in a constant space, maybe a “pop up” setup could be designed.
Yea… I’m not interested in a dark room, but I’d like to know what the offer is before I nix the whole idea. Getting more information can’t do us any harm.
If other people are super interested we can explore if it is possible.
I used to have a darkroom and it was far smaller than 6x6. When I bought my house it had a darkroom in the basement.
I tend to agree with the notions that a.) Film based photography is kinda dead, b.) dust and c.) Ichy chemicals that ultimately tend to get flushed down the drain.
That said I am absolutely hell bent on finding a way to do silk screening and finding a rapid, easy way of going from a computer image to a print. My experiments with the lasers has been fairly fruitless. I will support ANY practical vote for the tools and space to do this.
Hello Greg,
Iam sorry to have to tell you that i will be canceling my membership to the hive so that it ends at the end of my billing cycle.
Ill donate every thats left in my shelf.