My first time to use darkroom printing, 22 May 2006

It was my first time to learn how to do black and white printing in the darkroom today. I have been waiting for a long time, because I could not do lip-reading in Mandarin and read the notes. I could not hear when I was in Taiwan and London, until I attended the photography course in Chelsea. There they offer a BSL (British sign language) interpreter. Wet darkroom printing is part of photography course.

I arrived there before the course started leaving 40 minutes. I was so exciting about that.

The first time the tutor told us to check that we are aware about health and safety before we went into the darkroom.

We were in a darkroom lit only by a dim, red-coloured light which illuminates the expressions of anticipation around me. However there was not a nice smell from all the chemicals.

The BSL interpreter was wearing white hand gloves, so that we can see his hand talk from the red light. As there was only a very small light, we have to remain close to him and watch his hands.

The process of making the photographs was as follows. We had to first choose the paper grade. They we had to focus the negative and make a test trip. We then had to develop the paper image. The final process was to fix and wash which makes the image permanent and removes the chemicals from the paper. Once the paper is dry we can see the image.

It really was very interesting to learn how to do this and was a wonderful feeling to have made my own photographs, from start to finish.

© Sheng-Kai Chou 2006