learn to develop B&W film

than dropping your film off somewhere for some machine to develop! I love working in the darkroom—you have to pay attention to what you’re doing, but it’s not nearly as scary as it sounds. And it’s one of those great things that you can learn how to do adequately really quickly and then spend years playing with, exploring different manual effects and retouching tricks. Finding a darkroom is really the hardest part in this digital age, assuming you’re not on a college campus.

I TOOK PHOTO SHOP IN HIGH SCHOOL. AND I WAS APART OF THE PHOTO CLUB BECAUSE IT INTERESTED ME.

My girlfriend taught me this afternoon. She tried a couple weeks ago, but… you know… dark room and all, we got distracted.

I learned to develop my own B&W prints and film in my photography-one class last year (I’m a high school student.) At first I was excited to learn how to develop my own film, but after messing up the chemicals in the film developing (over and over, it’s soo easy to screw it up,) and then thinking that the film enlarger (the step when you actually make the final photo/print) was in-focus when it actually wasn’t or somehow getting a blurry print, etc.(lots of “defining factors” here.) I’m done with developing my own film and making my own prints, it’s all digital for me!! (but getting the perfect digital 4×6 print on a standard printer is a whole different story…)

All-in-all I’m soo excited that the entire photography “department” at my school has gone digital this year so I can say good-bye to this anything but fool-proof method of photographing.

I did a module at high school and it was so cool and satisfying to be able to develop my own prints. Wouldn’t have a clue how to do it now though…

i teach art and bw film workshops …
had the zone (ansel adams .. workshops back in the 79… study under two famous master’s of bw darkroom techs … )
was teacher of bw …still am …

when i was still in my 1st year at art school, my first proper lesson ever was on how to make and use a pin-hole camera. a very ancient, primitive way of taking a photo. it was fun, we walked around cape town carrying our little boxes, find the location, peel off the prestick covering the “lens”, let time click by…then cover it up and back to the dark rooms.

It’s really quite easy. There are tons of tutorials available online. The best thing to remember is to not take it so seriously. Load film in the dark. Dump in developer. Pour out developer. Dump in stop bath. Pour out stop bath. Dump in fixer. Pour out fixer. Hang film to dry. Done.

http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa051401a.htm