Fat Man and Little Boy Ride Again

[christopher walrath]

It is done. Rewind two weeks. I really need to get upstairs and clean out that closet. Rewind three years and two months. I need to make a break from photography for a while. Just sell everything. I am getting depressed because it is in the house and not being used.

It is done. Wednesday night I got home from work and decided it was finally time. I started about 5:30. I rearranged my bedroom so that I would have an empty wall. I then, piece by piece, bit by bit, began to cart everything out of that walk-in closet and stow it there. I have a huge pile of mostly stuff that I could sell. But it is a lot of stuff that I could keep. Golf clubs, guitar, telescope, fly fishing rods and stuff, clothes, family pictures. The pile is about three feet high and covers about 30-35 square feet of floor space. Regardless, it will not stay there for long.

Then I get down to brass tacks. First I set up Fat Man (Beseler 57MB) on the old desk that is now retasked as an enlarger table. There is enough headroom underneath for Little Boy (Fujimoto Lucky 60M) when not in use, safely out of the way. I placed the bookshelves on the right so that I could have my dry side stuff handy at a moment's notice. I have a small roll around cart. It now holds all of my developing tanks on its top surface and chemistry and graduates and other things beneath. The bookshelves by the door are chock full of some of my best reads (Garrett, Adams, Lambrecht, Vestal, McLean, Davis, White, Kingslake, etc.)

Tonight I made a stop by ACE Hardware on the way home. I picked up a few things. I now have hung a Christmas gift from my mother last year, a reprint of Adams' Grand Tetons from Snake River Overlook (a tad of inspiration) and my dry erase board for quick notes regarding time and dilutions and the like. I have my Gralab 300 plugged into a power strip and the safelight and Fat Man into that. I rewired Fat Man with a new power cord, the old and, sadly, original cord had become frayed and is a casuality of time and use. It works like a clock, or an enlarger, rather.

It only needs one more thing. And this weekend it just might get it. Some negatives, some paper, some chemistry and some magic. Long overdue. I sold all of the camera gear I had in 2011 after I came to the realiziation that I was stagnant in my photography and its mere presence in the house, laying unused, was a source of angst. Fortunately the darkroom gear never sold and I knew I would use it again one day so I stowed it. Well, that time has come, I am glad to say.

I was reading some old magazine issues today that I had kept. This one a mid 2007 issue of UK Black and White Photography. Mike Johnston had written his piece about being out of touch with his photography, much like I had been the last few years. He spoke about a, I think he called it, "Strategic Break" where you seperated yourself from your photography to gain perspective. To which he personally responded a resounding 'Hell No!' He then went on to write something that, in the wake of my own photographic resurrection, rang so true with me. "Photography is not something you think about. It is something you do." Another quote that I favor is from Stephen King's The Shawshank Redemption. "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'."

Time to do. Time to live. Time to create. Time to see. It is finally time. Now is the time. Now.

 

[limr]

Welcome back!

 

[Gary A.]

Good for You!

 

[Torus34]

Paul Gauguin's eternal triad of questions, "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?", may be a bit much, but a re-assessment from time to time's a good thing for many of us.

And, come to think of it, one could try to use photographs to either answer or at least flesh out Gauguin's queries.

 

[Rick58]

Dam- you Walrath...Dam- you! "No room" was the last excuse I had

Actually that's a lie. My wife has already granted me permission to convert the downstairs 1/2 bath into a darkkroom as long as I make a folding countertop over the throne.
My Lazyboy recliner asked my not to disclose that here

 

[christopher walrath]

Sorry, Rick. But there it is. And a very fortuitous side effect of one of those choices.

That cloth over the window on the left, a trifolded old bed sheet, dark red. I went in today to make sure that the room was light tight and that paper would not fog. BOY, did that room look bright with and direct afternoon sunlight coming into that window. So I ran a strip for 1-2-3-5-10 minutes in the dimmed light in front of that window on Fat Man's base. Souped in Ilf Multi 1:9 for a minute at 20 and then a vigorous water rinse for 5 minutes.

NO FOG! AWESOME! It is an all day darkroom with very little in the way of setup initially and it is good to go as she lies.

Either printing tonight or in the morning. Will post a scan or two when I am done.

 

[Rick58]

Good deal Chris! I'll tell ya what... A permanent DR makes all the difference

 

[christopher walrath]

Prevents all the setup/breakdown time. And that was a primary demotivator for me.

 

[Rick58]

Prevents all the setup/breakdown time. And that was a primary demotivator for me.

You certain aren't alone. Too many times it's just easier to watch TV. Now you go in there, throw on the radio (no lit dials of course) and get busy,

 

[terri]

Go, Chris! Go!!

 

[christopher walrath]

Just got done after a five hour session with a relatively easy negative to print, it turns out. Details later when the prints are dry and I have a scan to share.

 

[christopher walrath]

Well, here is the print and the low down.

Stones - Mispillion River - Milford, Delaware - 2008

Neopan 400
HC110b for 6'00" at 20C

Nikon N75 w/ 35-80 zoom
No exposure recorded

Printed on Orient Seagull RC-VC II 8x10 glossy
Enlarger used: Fujimoto Lucky 60M (Little Boy)
Enlarger Height 20"
Aperture f/11
Exposure time 22 seconds
Controls: Dodging for the last six seconds of exposure
- Used a 4x5 film holder and slid in from the right
- to reach the left side at exposure stop time.

 

[Rick58]

Really flat Chris. What happened?

 

[KenC]

Prevents all the setup/breakdown time. And that was a primary demotivator for me.

Yeah, I had a semi-permanent DR for a long time, meaning I had to clean up, but I could put off some of it to the next day, as it was in the basement. I was still happy when PS and printers came along, though ...

 

[Rick58]

I was still happy when PS and printers came along, though ...

I have to agree. While I miss film and the DR, I don't know if I would ever go back to wet printing. I think negs and scanning are the way to go. A hybrid of both worlds. Once a neg or print is scanned, it's now digital anyway. My hats off to the full blown darkroom people. Many years of a lot of fun, but if I can have my man cave with the smell of hypo and play with my film gear, I'd be a happy guy.