Patrick Thrush’s Darkroom & Photography Pages

Whaddya need a darkroom for anyway?

This is a question that I seem to get asked a lot.

Almost everyone I know these days has gone digital.  Digital cameras, image processing software, and color inkjets with very expensive cartridges.  I foresee a day in the not too distant future when an entire generation of Americans have absolutely no idea of what a film camera is or what it is good for.  Luckily for me, this is not my generation.

Rather, I find myself part of the Baby Boomer phenomenon of the 1950s, and am informed that Old Farthood looms large.  There is some consolation in that, as this status forms the sui generis of this tale.

A bit of history here to set the stage. 

World War II and its Aftermath

By the time 1946 rolled around, it was time for hundreds of thousands of American GI’s to come home.  During the war, American industry had geared up to produce goods at a speed and scale never before known.  Women saw their roles change as they joined the workforce and took part in building the machinery of victory.

As the men returned, it was a new business world.  Our government began to provide benefits for veterans under the GI Bill.  This included college and other educational tuition, and home loans.  The “new economy” had begun, and we were well on our way to the Baby Boom and the Cold War.

A number of positive and not so positive social changes began to come from this new prosperity.  With better production methods and the capitalistic need to keep making money, industry needed to begin producing consumer goods for American and foreign consumption.  To fuel the ability to buy these things, an entirely different wage scale and class of worker emerged for both blue collar and the new white collar worker.  The middle class was born.

Not only did these new jobs and better pay allow the new consumer class of the country buy houses, appliances, and cars, it provided an income that had a high “discretionary” expense component.  The American worker also discovered that he had to work less hours for more money than in times before the war.  From this trend, men in the new suburbs found that they had leisure time for things other than wage earning.

Women of course had been sent home from the factories and offices, and assumed a formal role as homemaker and manager of the domestic world.  The house became much the province of the woman.  From the combination of increased earnings, disposable income, leisure time, and the need to establish a male-only zone of influence in the home, a new social trend and political tool was born.

The Cold War and American Ingenuity

A very famous discussion of the 1950s was known at the “Kitchen Debate” between Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev at the American Exhibition in Moscow.  The entire point from the American side was that all of these new and wonderful appliances and “stuff” we were producing was proof perfect of the supreme superiority of the American way of life.

Our suburbs, jobs, income, leisure time, and burgeoning consumption of everything had become a political tool aimed squarely at the Soviets and their system of government.  Every consumptive and family centered excess we could engage in was encouraged by the government and press, and added as another page to why we were better than they.

And into this curious mix was injected new skills and the need to claim a male role in the home.  The great hobby movement provided the answer.

And Over Here…

The basement, garage, and back yard now became the male domain.  And what was done with them?  Whole new worlds of pursuits were available and heavily marketed through advertising and popular magazines.  These included woodworking, amateur (ham) radio & other electronics, astronomy, model trains, auto tinkering and rebuilding, boatbuilding, and photography.

Moving beyond smaller scale hobbies such as stamp & coin collecting and model building, these pursuits were a perfect fit for the new suburban man.  The sheer number of supportive industries was staggering.  Tools, supplies, literature, the list went on.  Government surplus from two wars fed the hunger of hobbyists for building blocks and parts.  A populist technocracy came into being, and demanded newer and better.  The gains made in photography and smaller formats launched many supply industries, and made the home darkroom one of the more popular venues.

In through the 1960s and through the 1970s, the 35mm format pushed out the older medium and large format cameras for amateur use.  Cameras, film, and accessories became more sophisticated and affordable for the middle class man.  The first wave of hobbyists was graying, and a new generation of technophiles was learning from them and driving the direction of modern silver based photography.  My late 1950s birth made me one of them.

Alright Mr. Wizard, What’s this got to do with your darkroom?

The stuff floating about and the people dabbling in it was astounding!   Large format cameras could be had for a song.  Kids in high school were hot on debating the merits of pushing Tri-X.  Schools had darkrooms, photo clubs, and camera stores sold tons of used equipment and even RENTED darkrooms to all comers. 

My first camera was an Argus C3 Standard.  It was a wonderful black and chrome brick that when loaded with Kodak Panatomic-X film and a bright day at my disposal, led to countless exposures.  Developing the film was easy with a light bag and tank, and only one change of the bus led to Norton’s Camera Store and the darkroom.  Everything was included except the paper.

The quality of equipment continued to grow.  My next camera was a Kodak Retina II.  It was sweet, for the body seemed to combine the best of 35mm rangefinders with the elegance of folders.  A new film was added to the stable, Kodak Super XX.  At the time, Kodak was the king of the world when it came to film, papers, and chemistry.  How the great and mighty fall.  Today working in the film division has been likened to the crew polishing the brass on the Titanic.

High School offered the almost unfettered use of a darkroom, and I would routinely spend hours there during the day and after classes in the late afternoon.  It was not long before I had my own key to the building where it was located, and could be found there very late in the evening most nights.  The trick was to be very quiet when I heard the janitors unlock the main door to clean up…

Later on, I had the opportunity to hang around photographers who had been at it since the Graflex days.  Cigar chomping and practical, I learned a great deal about filters, developing tricks, and the magic of fine art printing.  Much time was spent drooling over various Canon camera offerings, Beseler enlargers and accessories, and the darkrooms of others.  The space, time, resources, and income never came together in a way to move my photo empire further than the bathtub.  

And now we come to the virtues of impending Farthood.

The Wonders of eBay

Regardless of what you have, someone is looking for it.  This is the premise of eBay, the largest junk shop in the world.  Combine that with the disposable income and leisure time that comes with getting older, and I have an opportunity to own and use all of the stuff I wanted 20-30 years ago and never found a way to latch on to.

Now, if we further add the necessary use of camera equipment for my career, high speed DSL, and the purchase of a house with a basement, we now have the ingredients for a first class darkroom.  And all that stuff that was so expensive back when can now be had at a most reasonable price.

There is an art and character to film and paper based photography.  We who still seriously pursue it may be called dinosaurs riding off to the silver pit.  And while Kodak may abandon us, there will always be some enterprising company to step in and fill the void.  Three cheers for Ilford, Bergger, Efke, and all the others who continue the tradition.

I was once told that a man can build a house in five minutes with his mouth.  I figured that it might take me a month or so at the most.  Right.  These pages detail the past year, and of course it is not completely done yet.  Let the adventure begin…  Oh, and to answer the question we started with; to have fun.  For what purpose does life have if we do not take time to explore the things that interest us, allow us to grow, and that we enjoy and can share with others?