First Prints in the Bathroom
The enlarger arrived in two boxes, second-hand, with a 50 mm lens and a set of contrast filters that smelled of someone else’s darkroom. Setting up took a Saturday: a sheet of blackout fabric taped over the frosted window with gaffer tape, a plank across the bath for three 24 by 30 cm trays, the enlarger on the closed lid of the toilet because it was the only level surface at the right height, and a red safelight bulb in the ceiling fitting. I waited until it was dark outside, closed the door, and sat for five minutes to let my eyes adjust. Light was leaking under the door. A rolled towel fixed it.
The first test strip was a disaster of my own making. I exposed a strip of variable-contrast paper in five-second steps under the enlarger with a grade 2 filter, developed it for ninety seconds, and got a strip that went from grey to black in two steps with nothing in between. I had the lens wide open rather than at f/8 and the enlarger head too low. Second attempt with the lens actually stopped down and the head raised to give an 18 by 24 cm image: a proper strip from pale grey at five seconds to full black at twenty-five.
The first real print was at twelve seconds, grade 2, from a negative of the view from the kitchen window in low sun. It came up in the developer tray after about twenty seconds, which is a moment I will not forget, and reached full density around ninety seconds. Thirty seconds in the stop bath, two minutes in the fixer, then the light on and a look at it. Too dark and too flat. The second print went to grade 3 and ten seconds, and was something I could have shown someone.
By the end of the evening I had made nine prints, of which two were decent, and used up the warmth in the bathroom entirely. The developer had dropped from 20 °C to about 17 by the last print and the development time had crept up noticeably. The lessons were mundane: keep a jug of warm water to top up the tray, make a test strip for every new negative rather than guessing from the last one, and dry prints somewhere other than the bathroom door handle.