Important Health & Safety Information

[Hertz van Rental]

This thread is the result of a comment made in another conversation.

Over the years I have come to realise that although a great many people enjoy processing and printing their films they are completely unaware of the risks some of the chemicals used in the darkroom can pose to health.
I am not attempting to put people off using photographic processes, or to frighten them. But it is important to treat photographic chemicals with care and respect and not take unnecessary risks.
Observing safe practice is essential for those who teach or run classes of any kind. Nobody likes a law suit except a lawyer.

The purpose of this thread, then, is to provide advice, information and links to other relevant sites concerning known health risks posed by photographic chemicals, and to promote safe working practices.

I would therefore strongly advise everyone to visit these web pages, print them out and read them carefully.

http://www.trueart.info/photography.htm
http://www.ci.tucson.az.us/arthazards/photo2.html

It is a reasonably complete list of chemicals used in photography along with the various health risks they pose.

The level of hazard posed by the various chemicals depends upon a number of factors, including age, fitness and general health. The risks are also assessed on the basis that the chemical is undiluted. Even so it is best to err on the side of caution.

This page contains some very useful links:

http://www.trueart.info/hazards.htm

The site itself has lots of other interesting and useful information for artisits.

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[ksmattfish]

This would be a good thread for a sticky!

[ksmattfish]

On a related note...

Keep your cats (and I suppose other pets) out of your darkroom. Besides getting cat hair on everything, and that they like to lick the gelatin on the prints, apparently some cats find darkroom chems tasty, and it's not good for them.

[Hertz van Rental]

Some more useful links including information about dermatitis:
http://www.ehs.ufl.edu/HMM/photo.htm
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/diseases/dermatitis.html
http://www.lhc.org.uk/members/pubs/factsht/72fact.htm
http://www.ci.tucson.az.us/arthazards/medium.html

This one is of particular interest. It deals with the health problems associated with silver and it's compounds.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs146.html

Please try to find time to read these.

[DocFrankenstein]

Hehe Great info Hertz. Thank you very much for putting this up.

I I'll use:
lab coat
gloves
and maybe even a respirator of some sort

[darin3200]

I just read all of those articles and I need to be safer in the darkroom. I'm usually in it under an hour and its a big room but I'm going to set up a ventilation system now. In the first months of my darkroom I didn't bother wearing gloves Now I'm glad I have plenty of gloves.

['Daniel']

Are rubber gloves alright?

[darin3200]

Are rubber gloves alright?

That's what I use, my mom works at a hospital so she can get some for me

[Glorsclaws]

Thanx for sharing the links Hertz ...just the info I need for my course.

[marwa45]

thank you for info

[Rolleistef]

Rubber gloves are hardly protecting from anything... You should use those nice big gloves you use when you want to wash the floor with detersives or others.
Always work with some cool air coming, if you work in your room (dark-bedroom technic, works very well, shut the blinds and curtains and that's okay), open the window behind the curtains.
if you work in your bedroom
NEVER DO PRINTING JOB BEFORE SLEEPING OR AFTER 11PM FOR THOSE TWO REASONS :
(unless you don't have the choice of course)
-chemicals are volatil products, and you may sniff nice bad things all night long,
-you feel smarter than Ilford or Kodak or Tetenal and misuse the chemicals "because it's faster/better/etc". the result is : you get go-directly-to-the-trash printings
I suspect chemicals for being a bit hallucinogen. I always feel so smart and then over-disappointed when I'm printing pics .
Have fun
Stéphane

[fightheheathens]

as a chemist, i would like to say that of all the good safty measures you can take, some form of eye protection is the most important.
I have been working with chemicals for a while and while gloves and coats are a good idea, eye protection is top.

[Bobby Ironsights]

eye protection is top.

[montresor]

Y'all probably know this already, but the two lead docs linked herein don't print out perfectly, there's a lot of right margin overhang. If you can't get your computer to re-size it, try what worked for me -- edit:select all:copy.

Open a word processing document and paste. Woo-hoo! All correctly justified.

Now I need to find the best price on hazmat suits! :stun:

[RedStarRevels]

GOOD GOD! It's a wonder I'm alive...GLOVES!?! Never even thought about wearing them. I'm self taught, so I have a lot of darkroom bad habits...Like drinking and smoking while printing. Six Guinness can make it very difficult to tell whether or not an image is in focus! I'm going to give these sites a good read, thanks mate.