Back in the darkroom

I took one, and only one, photography class at university. I just didn't connect with the way the material was being taught and never took another course there. It was an introductory photojournalism class and the print critiques were always very focused on technical details, such as why did you use Rodinal for these negatives? Don't you know that huge balls of grain don't suit every subject? That kind of thing. For whatever reason, I was enamored of the Rodinal look at the time -- are, bure, boke, baby -- but nobody was buying that as an argument. Plus, I agitated my film like I was shaking a martini, which didn't help matters very much either. 

On the other hand, I learned a tremendous amount in the darkroom, both by making a lot of crappy prints (and a few good ones), but also by chatting with the man who managed the university's teaching darkrooms. For example, he once told me I should experiment with as many cameras and film formats as I could until I found the right tool for me. He said I'd know when I'd found it. I couldn't afford to do take his advice at the time, as much as I may have wanted to. 

I was always a bit sheepish about picking up my prints from the public space at the end of a working session. I was never completely satisfied with my results, I guess. Ultimately, I tired of working in a shared space and started maintaining a guerrilla darkroom in a large closet wherever I happened to be living at the time. 

Recently, I've converted a small bathroom into a darkroom, and I've started printing again. Fun!

I'm happy enough with my first work print as a point of departure for future explorations in the darkroom. The negative was captured using the SL66, the standard lens and good ole Tri-X. I printed using a Kaiser VP 9005 enlarger onto Ilford Multigrade RC paper. At a normal viewing distance the darkroom print looks a lot like a print of the scanned negative made with an inkjet printer. 

But upon closer inspection, there are noticeable differences, too. For one, it looks like the scanned negative (on the right) emphasizes the grain much more and is overall sharper than the print made in the darkroom (on the left). The lack of grain in the darkroom print is a plus, but the drop in sharpness needs to be investigated further.

So, I've got my work cut out for me. Certainly not enough information to draw any firm conclusions, except for maybe this. As photographers these days, we have an embarrassment of riches at our disposal as we go about the task of creating our art.