Back to the Garden

By Mason Resnick

Finally, the construction project was over. A fine layer of dust found its way into every nook and cranny in the house.

A fine time, I thought to myself, to take my darkroom out of its two-year hibernation and start printing again. After three years and two kids, I am ready to return to that garden of earthly delights--my long- abandoned darkroom.

It looks forlorn these days. Long-forgotten lens boards, trays and tanks lay out in the open, on shelves, gray and dusty. How the heck am I going to get this place back in gear?

More importantly, why bother? After all, here I am running Black & White World, busy as anything. Here's why: I need a break, and a few hours of printing has a calming effect. Actually, there were several other factors:
1. Since I now work several days a week in New York City, I've been doing a lot of street photography, and it's time to start printing my backlog.
2. I was reminded in a radio feature on NPR--National Public Radio--that computers have made us forget how to do things by hand, and this is something I know how to do by hand.
3. It's fun! One of the best vacations I ever had was when I took 2 weeks off and spent every night in the darkroom, printing almost until dawn then sleeping most of the day. Don't tell my wife--she prefers lying on beaches on tropical islands.

For starters, I donned a face mask (I am sensitive to dust, and a few minutes in this environment, stirring up the tiny particles will invariably send me out, sneezing and useless for an hour or more) and wiped everything with damp paper towels. Every item, every shelf was wiped clean of dust. This took a full day, with several breaks.

I damp-ragged down the ceiling, walls and floors around my Omega D2 and B22 enlargers, and ran my trays through the dishwasher, twice. (I then ran the diswhasher once, empty, so I won't be tasting stale Dektol with my salad.)

Next, I tackled the enlargers. Fortunately I had covered them and this kept most of the dust out. I carefully cleaned my three easels, the timer, all of the wires (it's amazing the number of places dust can collect) the cutting board and all of my loupes, magnifiers and multi-contrast filters.

I went through my soft-goods inventory, and had to dump almost all of it. The paper was at least 3 years old--not likely to give me decent quality. I had dozens of bags of unmixed chemicals. Some of them might be fine, but I decided to start fresh. I've donated the chemistry to a local school.

A shopping list is formed:

Mason Resnick is the Editor/Publisher of Black & White World, and can't wait to put his money where his mouth is...he is planning an online exhibit of new work for mid-winter. You can email him at bwworld@mindspring.com.