Thoughts of the Dark Room

Now it's not necessarily a dark room but it's The Dark Room. It's the place that smells like vinegar and old socks, and it's completely forbidden to "beef" in this magical room, this is actually one of the first things I learned in photo 1. To get in, you awkwardly get into what looks like a over sized film container with several other people only to be immersed in complete darkness as the door swivels you into a new view. Obviously dark here, it's quiet most times, sometimes there's musings of conversations and ideas, always the constant trickle of water that only contributes to the ear worms in your head. The best way I can describe a dark room is almost like a creative bar, there is usually a bar tender (aid) the lonely girl, the person who tells you WAY too much about their life, the know it all ;) and so on. I try to go in when I know I'll be alone, I love working alone in the dark.

This photo was made using ink dyed soap in plastic wrap, random nature, and light.

My thoughts focus on my work perhaps because it's the only light in the room that I control. Isn't that a funny thought? I can control light (minimally) and manipulate it in such a fashion that I can create and destroy images of family, friends, pets, and environment. Not only am I creating a tangible form of my not so tangible art, but I feel that I appreciate the work and time that goes into the photographs.

This is Gina she's amazingly beautiful, after I exposed her image instead of dumping the whole paper in developer I sprayed it on with a bottle and then used an air can to push the developer around to the placed I wanted developed. 

In the dark it seems people are more open to tell stories, exaggerations, and comedic accidents of the dark room past. I like to think it's because you can't quite see the faces. There is only a very dim orange light barely making your tools visible, but it's in there that things become artistically sacred, and conversations become deep and meaningful between strangers.

it takes some getting used to going in and out of the dark room because your eyes have to adjust from a comfy dim to a blazing light, it hurts at first if you don't prepare for the light. But in the blazing fluorescence you see your work for the first time, sometimes it's beautiful but mostly it's not and it's back to the enlarger to get it right with filters, timers, lights, hands, chemicals, and intuition. 

 I used some old neg's from a year or so ago, this is Amy cutting fabric for our banner here at home, I used opaque paper raised on both sides to blur the lines a bit. 

This is a lake with cows, I used wax paper to create the scrapy sky.

This was a neg I made myself, it's done using smoked vaseline on plastic wrap. 

What's smoked vaseline? Well basically you stretch a vaseline covered piece of  plastic wrap over a flat surface (I used an old cd) and then burn something and catch the black smoke on the plastic wrap. Then very carefully place the plastic IN the enlarger, focus, and expose your paper.