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| Lauren Stewart in darkroom test strips |
In 1962 with the help of my friend Robert Hijar I made my
first photographic print using an enlarger in the darkroom of what was then
called Mexico City College on the road to Toluca, Estado de México. I have been
in love with that process since and I have never lost that sense of wonder of seeing
the latent image projected on photographic paper by the enlarger emerge slowly
in the developer tray. Since 1962 with constant practice I became a very good
printer and interpreted my negatives to my satisfaction.
In those long years I have made every possible mistake
and discovered wonderful techniques from these errors.
In our first home in Arboledas, Estado de México, my
darkroom was the bathroom in my shop. In my shop I practiced carpentry and had
a bench saw. As you can imagine saw dust and clean negatives are in impossible
opposition.
In our first home in Burnaby BC, I had a very large
darkroom (it was comfortable. It was in the basement and it had its own
bathroom which I only used for the purpose a bathroom was meant for. I remember
I had a state-of-the-art (for then) phone with a speaker so I could attend to
my negatives and prints and still answer the phone.
The Burnaby darkroom became an even better one in our
Athlone home. But it was and is in a damp and very cold basement. I cough lots
when I am in there. A portable electric heater has helped a bit.
At first, particularly in Burnaby I enjoyed listening to
CBC Radio in the darkroom. I graduated to a cassette tape player and then in
the last 18 years I have eschewed music and also smoking my pipe. The darkroom
was unventilated and between caustic chemicals (in particular selenium toner)
and mold I am surprised to be still in the land of the living and with the
possibility of having some latent life ahead.
Alas! The darkroom will be no more in about two weeks. We
are moving slowly to our new home. I do have a little studio to take pictures
and I will process b+w film (in one of the three bathrooms) but the darkroom will
be history. I am not all that depressed about it. I sort of look forward to
learning the technique of ink jet printing on a good machine. And I do have a
very good Epson scanner.
In the last few days I have been printing like mad using paper
that was long taken off the market or the companies that made them are long
gone. I have used Ilfomar, Ilfobrom, Cold Tone this and that, all kinds of Agfa
papers and others. Some are so fogged I have thrown them away. Others are still
extant and have produced some nice prints. Someone gave me a long time ago ten
sheets of single weight 16x20 Agfa Brovira paper. For anybody who has ever
dealt with a print that size in a developing tray, it is almost impossible not
to dent it and to dry it flat is just about impossible.
But it has been fun and I plan to be at it until all the
paper is exhausted. I might (!) even go to Beau Photo and indulge in the luxury
of buying good paper that has not expired a couple of decades ago.
Latent Image I
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Latent Image I
Latent Image II
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Latent Image IV