Welcome to the Darkside

So… today I have had a bit of an accident.

It is my birthday - apparenlty - as I mentioned I try and avoid it! But Jen bought me an AGO Processor which I have been looking at for the last year or so, and I got the rest of the bits needed to process my own film in it at home (including a rather extravagant addition of a film drying cabinet - mainly as I will be working in the utility room and there is lint that floats about and occasional invading cats - so it seemed a worthwhile addition to keep the negatives from being covered in dust before I have a chance to look at them!)

Then there was a bit of a stroke of fortune when a Kaiser timer, brand new, appeared on eBay for a very, very good Buy it Now price. The enlarger that I have been looking at is a Kaiser, second hand, that runs up to 6×9 negatives - which covers most my day to day needs. I added all the bits to complete the build into my basket and was then rather taken aback by a delivery charge of £840 which kind of put a stop to that idea. I emailed the shop though… and he spotted a mistake in his back end and changed it to £30. After causing so much drama I figured I best actually put the order through! And then added the paper processing inserts for the AGO along with a couple of VERY large Paterson Drums to fit them in. And some black out curtains and blinds.

This whole set up will do colour too, but I am going to stick to black and white for the moment whilst I get to grips with the system using a chemistry that I am used to. Once the process is dialled in I will have a go at full colour work! I have some other thoughts too about alternative chemistry and alternative processes that I am going to investigate in the future as well!

So… what does this mean? Well, my intention has always been to move the majority of my art output to analogue - there is more of me in it, more soul than digital can ever muster. Having a set up at home for everything other than large negatives and very large paper means I can actually start to produce saleable pieces regularly which will then lend itself to both gallery sales and - potentially - running an art stall at some of the markets around the Highlands. It also means I can start putting together an analogue based panel for the BIPP. I have been struggling with time to get into the darkroom in Inverness, and when I get there I loose most of the day to processing film, in future I will be able to head in JUST to print large format pieces, making the whole thing much more productive when I need to go supersize!

The actual darkroom build will start sometime next week, hopefully. First I need to tidy up the utility room (again) and make space! I may also look at getting a chemicals cabinet and somewhere to store my photographic paper - although that is doing fine on my HiFi rack in one of the vacant slots at the moment!

30th September 2026