The Big Project
This week has been all about the BIG PROJECT!
It wasn’t supposed to be, but things kind of ran away with me a little! Jen got me an AGO Film Processor for my birthday, which is to form the lynchpin of an analogue system with the intention of starting to sell fine art photography. This is partially something that has always been one of the goals… and partially to prove that I am actually an artist! Anyway - the plan was to start with film processing at home rather than in WASPs as I spend most of my time at the community Darkroom processing film and not printing a huge amount.
So - phase one of the unexpected developments (no pun intended) was to start processing my own film at home before heading into the darkroom to do some printing. I had devised a plan for the rest of the build using second hand parts as new are incredibly rare and very, very expensive… but my idea was to base my home printing studio on a Kaiser 6×9 enlarger as they can be had new but I had seen a few used ones - which more importantly had colour heads for future proofing my planned solution. They don’t come (when second hand) with timers though so I was researching that side of things too when a brand new, boxed, timer appeared on eBay for a very good price (Euro plug - which put others off I think!).
That was the timer bought then. So my next idea was to put everything else in the basket to price up my build… which was… expensive. But even half the price of a new enlarger (and this included pretty much an entire set up including some esoteric extras for future proofing). The delivery charge was… startling… however. So I emailed the seller and an offer was made that was considerably more interesting… so everything was order a month earlier than planned!
Of course, not everything was available used - so I then figured I may as well finish off the job with black out blinds and curtains, some extra mixing jugs, some chemicals for developing paper, some storeage bottles and the extras to let the AGO develop paper as well as film. Everything else should arrive next week so I have some jobs on for early in the week - tidy up (extreme tidy) of the utility room, make it DARK… and take the massive pile of carboard to the tip!
The plan is to start with black and white (which is what I am used to working with and have the chemicals and paper for already) before having a go at colour processing and printing once I have everything working as I want it to. Then there is another phase - where I go fully esoteric with old techniques (I have a book coming to research some of these techniques and have found sources for most of the materials). At this rate I am going to be needing a large format camera too!
