7/9/23: General update & darkroom

Hi again. Been a while. The past 10 months have been extremely busy, stressful, emotional, often awful and sometimes wonderful. I'm recovering from a loss and recently moved, with plans to move again before the end of the year. Which meant saying goodbye to the job I loved, and now I'm feeling both aimless and paralyzed while I try to find something else. Job-hunting is kind of a job in its own right (I know I don't need to tell any of you how bad it sucks but GOD it sucks!) but in between I do find myself with slightly more free time and resources, so I'm trying to get back into stuff I haven't had a chance to think about in a while-- for example, working on this website. I actually have had drafts for multiple other pages just sitting around for months, so hopefully I'll get those finished and posted soon. Currently though I feel really guilty when I spend more time than absolutely necessary sitting at a computer (because it's summer, I guess?) and my wifi here is dogshit anyway, so I've also been like, going on walks and trying to do yoga (and forgetting to keep doing yoga) and making music. My memory is awful so I'm trying to read up on topics I used to study, namely music theory and photography. Which brings me to the rest of this post.

A few years ago I bought two photo enlargers (and a crap ton of other miscellaneous film process/printing equipment) extremely cheap from someone on a neighborhood forum. Besides the developing tanks, most of it has sat unused in a cabinet because I have been very intimidated by the thought of it. I haven't done any printing since high school, and even then, it was in a controlled environment. All the equipment had already been set up; and I wasn't responsible for any assembly or maintenance; I rarely if ever mixed my own chemicals; I had access to a darkroom with built-in safelights and running water, etc. I learned the relative basics but didn't do anything particularly complex.

Currently I am lucky enough to have access to a basement with large work areas that can be made dark enough. No running water, but I can feasibly work around that.

The local camera store no longer carries much film (when it does have some, it's always at a huge markup, but that's par for the course these days) and I haven't checked but I doubt they have paper either. And of course, now I'm responsible for purchasing and mixing my own chemicals, so all things considered the financial stakes are a lot higher when it comes to fucking around and troubleshooting and so on.

Today (I am a bit ashamed to admit) for the first time, I turned on the enlargers and tested them. I know I will be selling or giving away one, but it's a harder decision than expected. The fancier of the two was harder to get working, seems to be in slightly worse shape, its projections were very small and I couldn't figure out why. I think it might be missing a part? But if so, it's a part that I am pretty unfamiliar with and will not want to spend money replacing. On the other hand, it theoretically is equipped to print in both bw and color, I have three different lenses for it + lots of filters + both 35mm and 120mm carriers, and brief research identifies it as a very reliable "workhorse" of a model.

Ihe smaller one worked well right off the bat, I could operate it basically from muscle memory, and even successfully hooked it up to a timer (which tbf i haven't yet attempted on the other). That being said, it doesn't have a color head and is generally a bit more limited in what it can do.

In all honesty, I can't see myself ever printing in color. Way too fussy. But ideally, I'd still hang onto the fancier enlarger just for more versatility. I want to do a lot of work on this over the summer. Unfortunately I know that wherever I end up moving is extremely unlikely to have space for this, so it will probably live in my family's basement forever. Hate that finding adequate housing is so hard right now! Dreaming about a home large enough that I can designate a hobby space-- maybe room with a corner for a sewing table, an area to keep musical instruments, somewhere to stick an enlarger. I am so sick of stashing stuff at my parents' house and living out of storage bins.

Anyway, in a similar vein, I found out that an art supply store in driving distance carries cyanotype chemistry. I am definitely going to play around with that, I remember loving it as a kid. Maybe I will scan whatever prints I make and post some here.

Song today: Not Dead Yet - The Weepies