My first prints!

[bcostin]

Those look good Chris. I already develop my own film, and I inherited an enlarger (three of them, actually) but I haven't yet tried making my own prints. I'm sure I'll eventually set up a darkroom if I can carve out some space somewhere. Your "try it and see" method sounds similar to my own way of doing things, so I find your nice results encouraging.

[alex macphee]

You know, some people say that 'darkroom magic' is just so because it was your first kind of photographic experience, and that there's as much magic in seeing a print come out of the printer, if that too happens to be your first photo printing experience.

 

I have to say that, as someone whose first printing experience was with Kodak Velox paper, after film developing in a dish under the bed at midnight, I've never actually seen a thread in which an inkjet/bubblejet/dye sub printing experience has been a focus for nostalgic reminiscenses over their 'magic'.

[silverscape]

Alex, I've been around computers my whole life and I've printed more inkjet and laser pictures than I could count. Nothing would ever compare to the first time I developed my own prints. It is magic taking the paper out of the tray and actually seeing an image on the paper.

 

And of course, I'll never forget the first time I developed my own film. I was always curious about how film is developed, but I never knew how until just recently. I literally jumped from excitement the first time I opened the tank and saw that there were actually images on the film. Everytime I develop a roll of film, I always get this twinge of doubt...like, "am I doing this right?" but I open the tank, and there the pictures are. There IS something magic to it, and I love it because it's a challenge. Not everyone can do it. Probably because a lot of people just wouldn't have the patience, especially people like me who grew up with point and shoot cameras and digital camers. You either just took the film to a lab and got it developed, or got the picture in seconds from a digital camera. But you were never really that involved in the process. But developing the film yourself, you are intimately involved. It happens right in front of your eyes. I just think that is so cool.

 

Also, it almost seems like alchemy, how light chemically changes film at the molecular level.