Entry 1 – My First Darkroom Experience

I have heard about darkroom and have seen it many times on the television, but this was my first time walking into one. Under the guidance of the technician and our instructor, four by four, we slowly entered into the darkroom. As the circular sliding door opened, I stepped into this noisy and basement-like room, and my first impression was – “this is dark but it isn’t as bad as I thought”.

After the introduction tour ended, as I reentered the room for the demonstration of photo enlarger, the darkroom revealed its true state – lights off. With only the illumination of a dim red light, it took my eyes a while to adjust. This time, the darkness frightened me a little.

After the demonstration, we were given an opportunity to familiarize with the photo enlarger and to produce some experimental photogram images. Although the demonstration was clear, my first hands-on experience with the photo enlarger was a bit of a struggle. The model of my enlarger was slightly different to the one with which my instructor demonstrated. Therefore, discovering the controls and working in a dark environment were challenging.

After some time of exploration with the settings, I was ready for my first photogram. Adopting the suggestion of my instructor, I tested three different exposure times in my first trial. The purpose of this trial was to understand the relation of exposure times and the brightness and contrast. The experimental photogram trials were also beneficial in terms of knowing the effects that could be created by objects with different transparencies. 

Overall, I learned a great deal from my first experience in the darkroom, and I was pretty happy with the result of my trials. The images on this post are my first, in progress and final result of my trials.