Safelight Hours

Who writes here

I shoot black-and-white film on cameras that are older than I am, and I develop and print it at home. The darkroom is the bathroom: a sheet of blackout fabric over the window, a board across the bath to hold three trays, and an enlarger that lives in the wardrobe between sessions. Sessions start after dark because the door does not seal.

I came to this by accident, after being given a box of family negatives with no prints, and stayed because the process suits me. These pages hold the development times that worked, the prints that did not, and the small repairs that keep sixty-year-old shutters firing. Nothing here is expert; it is the record of someone learning slowly with wet hands.