john_stockdale2 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>What about an electrical fault? He gets a shock and passes out. When he regains consciousness, he is a changed man.........</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
palangat Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>Hi Mary,<br> The idea that a photographer is poisoned fatally from chemicals in a darkroom sounds unrealistic to me. The amount of pottassium ferricyanide in the reagents is very little to make enough cyanide gas to create any problem. So is true for all other chemicals used in the darkroom unless someone is stupid enough to down a bottle of developer or fixer! Most chemicals that we use in routine life activities have to be ingested to some significant levels before they cause major problems. Given that scenario, chemicals used in the darkroom do not pose an imminent problem.<br> You said that you need to introduce another character into the photogs life. Is there a specific reason for the scene to be in the house? Why not make the setting more natural - say the photog is out on a cliff shooting a sunset, falls several feet below and is injured to the point where he can only scream for help and can be helped only before it gets dark.......Injury to your brain or spine can lead to paralysis. What happens when a person with brain or spinal injury arrives at the hospital should be easy to find on the internet.<br> Depending on where your story is geographically set, you can visualize many scenarios for poisoning by snakes or spider bites or dart frogs or even poisonous plants for that matter!<br> my 2 cents worth. hope this is helpful.<br> murali</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_quinn2 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>I work with CN quite a bit. As you can see a lethal dose in 1.5mg/KG. That is small but a whole lot more than just a sugar grain size amount of KCN on your skin.<br /> Here is some info on what it does to you.<br /> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide<br> I would guess it would take about 8 sugar grain size pieces of KCN to equal 1.5mg. If a person is small say 50 KG that would be 400 sugar size pieces of KCN to give them a 50/ 50 change of death.<br> Still remember this is a story for your book. Don't test it at home.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_quinn2 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>A possible way to make it happen could be that he is dumping his waste chemicals into a bucket rather than pouring them down the sink. Maybe he is environmentalist and wants to take them to a hazardous waste pick up center. If he poured stop bath and Potassium Ferricyanide in together he could get cyanide gas. In the small area of a bathroom that could make him quickly ill but still survive.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_layton Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>I can remember years ago...making some albumen prints...that the use of mercuric chloride (to aid in toning) was very dangerous - with a very small amount being potentially lethal.</p> <p>Cannot remember the specific amount to be lethal, nor the specific symptoms...but the scenario involved in the albumen process (cracking eggs, separating and whipping up the eggwhites, etc.) could lend itself well to a story. Hmmm....maybe in the context of a fourth or fifth generation chicken farmer with a closeted desire to be a photographer! </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_hitchen Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>The problem I see with the cyanide storyline is that you can smell it way before it becomes lethal (as we noticed during biochemistry practicals at University).</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_layton Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>oh...your character is a photographer and camera collector. Maybe he could take into his possession an old camera loaded with some old, nitrate - based film, which (in the presence of excess moisture) spontaneously combusts in his darkroom.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_quinn2 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>Most but not all people can smell it. Perhaps he has a cold. Perhaps he smells it and does not know it is toxic. It is a push to see anyway he could be poisoned but it is not impossible. He would have to dump a whole lot of the right stuff in the same bucket and then hang out in the room a while but it is possible.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_quinn2 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>Maybe he mixed up a whole liter of each chemistry the day before but got lazy and did not label them. The next day he can’t remember what is what and figures that he will toss them both rather than take a chance on ruining a roll of exposed film that can not be replaced.<br> He is using a citric acid stop bath. (not smelly acetic acid stop)</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_quinn2 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>Maybe he decides to be safe he will start to wear gloves in the darkroom. He knows he has a very bad latex allergy so he goes to Walmart and picks up some made in China “latex free” gloves. I turns out that these gloves are actually really just standard latex gloves. The factory in China just copied the writing off of another box of gloves and never bothered to have anyone translate it into English for them. So he has a very dangerous allergic reaction.<br> That way we won't scare any new potential darkroom workers into thinking that want we work with is really bad stuff.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larrydressler Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>I one time drank some D-76 and nothing bad developed. :)</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamczyk Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>How about working in heavy metal poison. As an old camera collector, he was called in to examine one the first Kodaks ever made for authenticity and while there he was exposed to large amount of Thallium (also found in rat poison). Heavy metal poisoning will land him in the hospital with liver and kidney problems. Also his skin may turn "colors" <br> Anyway that's my take on that. I work with radioactive form of Thallium-201 everyday. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Laur Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>A home darkroom may be in a space that includes storage for other household chemicals, including things containing chlorine and amonia. A person in an angsty, forgetful, or sleep-deprived state of temporary carelessness could dump, spill, or otherwise co-mingle some things that really shouldn't be together, lest they produce some really evil fumes. A bleach-based cleanser can could spill into a tray that's accidentally had an amonia cleaner (use to clean the glass used to flatten negatives while making contact sheets) ... presto, some really bad mojo you don't want to inhale. That's going to create more of a burn-your-lung-tissue scenario, though.<br /><br />Let's not forget some of the other things that happen in dark places that see lots of film washing, tray rinsing, and other moisture-creating activities ... like, mold. And some of that can cause immediate (and often very odd) reactions. Say you've run your hands under edge of a counter stop, and through a patch of black mold that had set up shop in your man-made cave. Then, a quick paper cut or a wound from a corner of sheet metal on a piece of darkroom gear, and the finger goes reflecxively in the mouth ... for some people, that bit of odd mold transferred directly to the tongue can cause quick and wicked (and even lethal) symptoms including suffocating swelling of the tongue, puking your guts out for two days, and any number of classic allergic responses from the mild to the deadly. The tiniest bit of the wrong mold can do that.<br /><br />So, think about the darkroom as an environment, not just as a place where the specific processing chemicals are used.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mary_willis Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>a lot of good ideas are being thrown out there. I am not particularly attached to the idea of the darkroom if it isnt going to work. you guys dont seem to be getting into the anaphyactic shock thing.. but i do like the idea of something almost fatal happening to him that is connected to photography somehow and the spiderbite and falling off a cliff idea was really cool.. his brother died by falling or perhaps jumping (reader is never told straight out) off a cliff.. that parallel might be really interesting considering a lot of different things connected to that situation.. it would definitely be enough to freak him and his entire family out. maybe gets a concussion and tries to stay awake but starts to lose consciousness but someone sees his camera case and goes to pick it up and sees him lying on the rocks below... could easily happen at house mountain here in this area.</p> <p>i did so many searches on google about photographic chemical poisoning and was coming up with nothing so thanks for all the comments. Im still kicking around ideas but all of you have given me some really cool things to think about.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rowland_mowrey Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Well, the chemicals first enter the digestive tract and then are absorbed into the blood. By the time that the chemicals are in the digestive tract if swallowed, your person has probably thrown up. Hypo (Fixer) is not as toxic as you think. It is actually injected into the body as a counter to cyanide poisoning. As said above, the worst reaction would be an allergy just like any other allergy starting with a rash and swollen mucosae. The alkali in the developer can burn the esophagus but would be neutralized in the stomach. In about 60 years in the business, including 32 years at Eastman Kodak, the worst I have ever heard of was a person vomiting due to accidental oral contact and another having a mild rash after placing his hands in the developer without rubber (or viny) gloves.. I think you are pushing things unless you go to a cyanide salt, a mercury salt, or a chromium salt. And, today these are rather rare. In a recent TV show, they depicted photographic solutions being flammable. This is totally false with one exception, wet plate collodion, which this person was not using as they stated what he was using. I personally think that you should alter your premise. The reason your Google search was so unproductive is rather telling in the sense that poisoning by photographic solutions is very very rare. Ron Mowrey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orourke Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>How about this. While working in his basement darkroom, he notices a dark colored liquid dripping down the side of his Beseler 23CII and onto the 8x10 enlargement he is exposing. Following the path of intrusive liquid he discovers that it is coming from the floor of dining room directly above the darkroom. Flipping on the light he inspects the red liquid between his thumb and forefinger. Opening the door of the darkroom he calls for his wife who was unexpectedly home for the afternoon...."Maude,......Maude". Getting no response he dashes up the basement stairs. As he passes the mud room landing adjacent to the back door he notices that the back door is open to a torrential rain and the screen has been cut. Mud footprints lead into the kitchen to the stove where he sees a rabbit boiling in a pot and continue into the dining area. He pauses......calling once more for his wife as he cautiously peers through the doorway into the dining room....."Maude....Maude, where are you"... Then he sees him. A stranger lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He bends over the fellow, checking for pulse when suddenly his eyes bulge and he gasps as a butcher knife is plunged into his back. He turns to see his wife, Maude, and with his dying breath he asks.....why?......why Maude? Maude can only laugh. "Ha" she cackles. "So you thought you were going to sell my FM3a on Craigslist without me finding out about it did ya! Do you know how long I searched on ebay for one under 500 bucks?"</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_quinn2 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>I agree that acute poisoning with photo chemicals is rare to the point of almost saying it NEVER happens. However chronic exposure can lead to health problems like kidney damage. When you have kidney damage it is hard to say what caused it. If you work a darkroom you may blame the chemistry and be wrong. <br />What is safer? <br />Going out with friends after work to a bar or going home alone to my darkroom?<br />I think that the darkroom is the safer place to be.<br />However I will usually go to the bar and bring my camera along.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcsharp Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>How about he goes to turn on his darklight, and he accidentally electrocutes himself?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpo Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 <p>Weird nobody mentioned this already: there is a book called "Overexposure, Health hazards in Photography" by Susan D. Shaw & Monona Rossol, ISBN 0-9607118-6-4, there you will find lots of information about the chemical risks of each and every photographic process.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_hoyt Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 <p>Thiourea is a photographic chemical that can cause serious poisoning. It is a carcinogen and if adsorbed through the skin it can cause thyroid disorders. A photographer could mix up a bath to tone prints that contains thiourea. If he is not careful when compounding the toning bath by using gloves, he could poison himself. He should use gloves when he tones the prints in the solution. The more exposure, the greater the probability he will be sick and the sooner the effect. </p> <p>Paul</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim gray Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 <p>Why not have the guy clean his darkroom with a combination of bleach and ammonia. Small space with potentially poor ventilation and an ill-advised idea.</p> <p>It's my impression that common household chemicals can be much more dangerous than common photographic chemicals. I'd much rather drink some stop bath at working dilution than Drano, bleach, kerosene, etc. Not that I'd advise doing that either :)</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larrydressler Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 <p>An auto mechanic has more chance of being poisoned than a photographer/darkroom worker.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rustys pics Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 <p>Mary I don't know if this will help, but in the old days (actually not THAT long ago, the 1980s!) and before, some photographers used to mix copper sulfate to tone prints green. That's EXTREMELY toxic. It was also used for an insecticide for agriculture as "Bordeaux Mix" until they realized anyone using it was dead within 4-6 months from Kidney & liver failure/cancer. Real nasty stuff.....</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larrydressler Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 <p>Oh and an older American Penny is sometimes covered in Copper Sulfate if it was stored in an area that had air pollution from a power plant.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpo Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 <p>Russ, copper sulfate certainly it is mildly toxic (mainly irritant to humans) , but far from "extremely toxic" as you say. It is a powerful fungicide and algaecide and that's why it is used to protect grapes and swimming pools (and we eat the first and dive into the second). This salt is also included in most of the chemistry sets children play with up to these days.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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