Response to dark room

Alaina: I've been through this several times. Black plastic purchased in hardware, farm, or garden stores is useful for making a room dark enough. It might take more than one layer in a bright room. A corner of a basement or whatever is available can be partitioned off with it. Running water is nice, but most of my darkrooms didn't have it. Instead, I used gallon milk jugs to bring water in, and a pail to dump it. If the room is between 65 and 70 degrees, storing some water there in milk jugs gives you a supply of water at the same temperature as the chemicals. This simplifies developing film. Cheap plastic dishpans are useful for washing prints or even to use instead of regular trays. If you use them for the chemicals, mark each of them so they are always used for the same chemical to prevent contamination. I've bought several enlargers from schools when they auction off surplus equipment. On the internet, eBay has enlargers, but the buyers know what they are worth. Some are still bargains. There are a lot of enlargers that amateurs have set aside and almost forgotten. Sometimes they show up at auctions or garage sales. Developer should be stored in dark bottles, but any bottle in a dark room or cabinet does as well. Kitchen measuring cups and other containers are useful in the darkroom, and don't have to be fancy. A good darkroom thermometer is fairly expensive, but if film developing tanks, chemicals, and water are all stored in a room at the right temperature, an accurate room thermometer does fine.

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