Darkroom Class & Lessons Learned

Print currently being worked on. 35mm printed on Fiber Based Ilford paper. Split grade used. Still needs some vignetting to get it right.

Like most of todays converts to darkroom printing, I learned most of what I know via YouTube videos and helpful chatrooms.  I then upgraded my education through a friend with vastly more experience than I have.  This helped push my darkroom printing up a notch. 

Last week I decided to pay for a full day class on printing taught by Alejandro Gulminelli who is quickly developing a name for himself in the analog photography world of Buenos Aires.  He has traveled extensively and been taught by some amazing people in the US.  He is very approachable and has an easy manner about him.  I had purchased a enlarger from him a few months ago and decided to return to see about a private class.

Alejandro is a very good photographer and a great guy to learn from. He is patient and walks you through his methods giving you ample opportunity to try different things. I really enjoyed the class so lets jump into it!

It was a full day affair at his business/darkroom.  We started with a quick chat about photography, what I was working on and what I wanted to accomplish that day.  I explained that I knew a bit about darkroom work but wanted to see another person's workflow to see how they did it.

I selected a medium format negative (I took several sheets to pick from) and we started working.  Below are a few things that I learned and an overall take away from the class.  

Notes:

1. Alejandro has a very efficient workflow. Paper is expensive in Argentina (roughly twice that of the US) which has pushed him to be careful with waste. I will explain one method I picked up from him below.

2. Alejandro is methodical especially when it comes to bath times and temperature. Development is 2 minutes with Stop baths being about 30 seconds and development being another 2 minutes.  

3. Alejandro has a very good eye for composition so this part of the print process is second nature to him. I took a bit of time to understand why he would compose things a certain way and was very pleased with his selections. This is more intuitive for him and was fun to watch.

4. Alejandro spends a great deal of time nailing the whites on his images. Once the white has the least amount of detail he nails this down before moving to getting his blacks. His blacks he seemed a little less concerned about, ensuring a true black somewhere on the image and running with it.

5. Alejandro has had a great deal of equipment built for him. One item of note is a steel stand to put the wet prints up on in order to squeegee them dry and study them.  It had some LED lights up top to make it easier to see and a collection tray below for the water.

6. Alejandro will try everything else before moving to dodging and burning. He believes it is hard to get a proper dodge or burn without telltale signs of it being done.

7. Alejandro builds his own frames and even installs lighting in them.  

Overall:

My main lessons learned from Alejandro is one of efficient paper use and careful time management. I used to use half a sheet to do my filter tests at 0 and at 5.  This would kill one entire sheet of paper giving me on bright white and a true black. But it did not show me what they looked like together.

Alejandro taught me to take a smaller strip and get the whites right. So lets say we selected a Grade 2 filter at 10 seconds. He then exposes the next strip for the full 10 seconds before applying the Grade 5 filter and working on the true blacks. This saves time and paper.

I am now timing the amount of time my print sits in the developer, stop and fixer. This coupled with a monitoring of the temperature of the baths (I give myself 20-22 degrees C as a range) will give me more consistent results.

You can see Alejandro's Instagram feed here.

@alejandro.gulminelli