A Backwards Camera in a Dark Room - Photographic Printing

Today your prints will come, and they're fresh.
Links 'n' stuff:
The last video:
• Making Film Reveal its...
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• Photography
The Naked Photographer (really worth checking out if this stuff interests you!):
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[@TechnologyConnections]

Can't say you're gonna put a link in a pinned comment and then not do it so here's the link! If you're interested in analog photography, particularly darkroom-related shenanigans and experiments, The Naked Photographer is a neat watch. kzbin.info

[@justindunlap1235]

thanks for making this series, it takes me back to the old highschool darkroom. this makes me want to get back into film photography.

[@mnyoupass]

40 minutes...this is the long format educational content I come here for

[@dylangergutierrez]

Aww yeah, this is the crossover episode I've been waiting for

[@VarunGupta3009]

Risky click of the day.

[@nugboy420]

@@justindunlap1235 yo I agree tho it was middle school for me with the old oatmeal shits we made with the pinhole. I think I remember wondering about how the cameras of the y2k era increased the size of the pictures from film. I asked the teacher aka my second cousin, if we had taken smaller pictures and wanted to blow them up that, if we were going to make a bigger picture to shine light thru like an overhead projector or something (god remember those?) and I was shocked to find out he was like it is similar. When this dude (ahhhgh I can’t think of his name rt now…) brought up enlarging I just thought to shine a light thru it above the area but only til now do I remember asking about the projector, which by actually having lenses and shit made more sense than getting a super blurry pic. Sorry for the reminisced rambling.

[@AntVenom]

This man really knows how to transition from “No Effort November” to “Detailed December” in style.

[@Xiefux]

no cap, tru fr bruh

[@commisar44]

Indeed. Fancy seeing you here on a video about such an awesome analog process. It would be insane if Minecraft had a photography mod like this.

[@StormHawksHD]

Funny seeing you here Mr Hankvenom

[@rachel_sj]

Such a transition is the Best Christmas Gift Ever for fans/viewers!!

[@torreywhiting5402]

HELLO GOOD SIR

[@Yakkers]

You were correct, mind blown on burning and dodging, after using Photoshop for 15+ years those little lollipop and closed hand icons finally make sense. I love learning about the analog origins of digital tools and terminology and having them suddenly gain a tangible meaning. A technology connection, if you will

[@fergabmmx]

its like the floppy disk Save icon all over again

[@qwertyasdf66]

I remember when my school got some airbrushes and my friend was perplexed they were physical objects. He'd never stopped to think about why "airbrushing" on computers was called that.

[@aspecreviews]

Skeuomorphism at its finest...

[@dycedargselderbrother5353]

The hard drive cylinder is probably just about detached from its original meaning at this point. It's now the "loading icon".

[@MostlyPennyCat]

Great isn't it? Processing RAWs off your camera into a 'real' colour space and how's it's an exact match to the film-to-paper stream we used with 'real' analogue film is fascinating. Can it only be that way? Because maths and physics? Or was it because when all they had was a hammer, everything looked like a nail?

[@chickensmack]

"Open only in photographic darkroom." I worked at a commercial photolab, years ago. On my first day, the guy training me said two points are non-negotiable. Everything else was flexible: "First, you'll never get paid early. If payday falls on a holiday, you'll have to come in to pick up your check or wait until the next workday. Second, never let Lou see you with food or drink in your work area." (Lou, she was the owner.) As the process became more digitized, my job became a hybrid between the computer lab and my darkroom. I took a box of photographic paper and cut a hole in the end. This hole allowed me to set it on my desk, up on its end, with cup of coffee or a can of soda, stashed inside. I could lift the box, take a sip and place the box back into place. Since the box was marked as being light sensitive, nobody messed with it.

[@maxshootsfilm306]

hay thats realy smart, were not allowed to have drinks in the school darkroom ether, definitely gonna test this out lol

[@Quivex1]

Haha that's great! I love hearing stories like this, because I got into the field just as darkrooms became (more or less) no more, and professional photography moved pretty well exclusively digital. That said, the studio I worked for had 30-40 years of fascinating archived shoots, from big commercial jobs, to portraits of prime ministers and everything in between. Even though I was only a digital processor and photographer at the time, over the last few years we've been digging through the archives and scanning tons and tons of medium format film that was shot on old Hasselblad 500s, as well as pulling up 35mm weddings that we STILL have, because people lost their albums and want their old wedding pictures haha. I'll admit that before I started scanning and processing negatives, I really wasn't interested in film photography, but seeing the detail and dynamic range you could get out of medium format or even 35mm negatives kind of amazed me, and made for a lot of fun and interesting processing jobs. It really got me interested in the field and as soon as I get the time I plan on experimenting more with film photography, from making my own negatives (and hopefully) prints, although after using photoshop for the last 12 years manually dodging and burning might be a tough pill to swallow haha.

[@chickensmack]

@@Quivex1 Some of my most fascinating work was restoration. I didn't do any airbrushing. My job was to get as much information onto new photo paper for the artist. We'd get really yellowed and faded old pictures and I'd set it up on a table in what was not much more than a storage closet with polorized flashes mounted on it. I'd put a dense blue filter onto the copy camera, mounted above it and then hit the flashes every five seconds. This sometimes took several hours of sitting in that closet to get the exposure. Then, I'd take the film into the darkroom and over-develop the crap out of it. I was always amazed at the detail that this brought out.

[@Quivex1]

@@chickensmack Wow. That's incredible! I can't imagine the amount of work that would into that, and I have a HUGE appreciation for it. The job I have right now (and one I'm looking to get soon with my country's National Archives) involves a TON of restoration work, but it's obviously all digital. I love bringing old prints back to life when the negatives are lost, or sometimes even fixing scratched or damaged negs as well. Restoring detail, color, fade, DR or even going in and inpainting lost detail based on other reference material is something I truly love doing. I've been big on photo manipulation and compositing since I was a kid who first pirated photoshop haha, so restoration is something I love and am super happy I get to do it as a profession. I imagine if I had the skillset I would love doing it the "old school" way as well, but from a physical labor side of things that sounds super intense. If I ever get deep enough into my film hobby, maybe I'll give it a go, but it sounds almost too time consuming to be feasible. Thanks so much for sharing that with me, I have a lot of respect for the work you did!

[@davidmcgill1000]

Bringing drinks into a dark room full of poisonous liquids? Great idea.

[@Spaghettaboutit]

As someone who took B&W film photography in high school back in 2004, I've gotta say you've make an amazing crash course on what I had to go through and learn. Bravo on putting all of this together and not making it feel like it drags despite its long run time. Fantastic video my man.

[@Kraus-]

Lol I just noticed it's 40 minutes. Felt like 10 I'm so hyped for more.

[@chrisgraham9178]

I was thinking the same thing. I took a couple years of photography in highschool and college, and this brought back so many memories. I found myself browsing ebay for equipment not even half way through the video.

[@Datalore2371]

One weird use of those sodium lamps I've seen: In high school I was in a production of "City of Angels" where certain parts of the show are meant to be in black and white. To accomplish, the production designer bought two massive sodium lamps that were placed at the front of the stage and during the "black and white" portions these lamps would turn the entire set and actors sepia toned. Genuinely one of the more interesting applications of these I've ever seen!

[@TechnologyConnections]

Yes! A lot of early chorma-key-esque work was done this way. If actors were filmed in front of a screen lit with these lamps, the background could easily be isolated as it didn't expose the film. A lot of of the live-action mixed with animation scenes in Mary Poppins were accomplished this way if I'm not mistaken.

[@Fenlandia]

@@TechnologyConnections If you're not mistaken? Does that happen?

[@mybigfatpolishlife]

The birds by Alfred Hitchcock used the sodium vapor method to composite in the attacking birds

[@awsomevideoperson]

@@TechnologyConnections I've always wondered how they did old school green screen stuff, that makes a lot of sense!

[@WolfSchouten]

@@TechnologyConnections You are not mistaken, nicely discussed fior example here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGfFaKinj8iLd7s

[@MartinIbert]

Fun fact: I used to have a pair of sunglasses with a "absorption gap" where the wavelength of sodium lamps is. It was meant for safe driving because it would protect your eyes from sunlight, but allow you to drive through tunnels safely because tunnels would be lighted by sodium laps, and the absorption gap would let you see in the tunnel.

[@aarondavis8943]

Could the gap be calibrated for LED lights? Or is the wavelength unworkable? 🤔

[@unvergebeneid]

@@aarondavis8943 White LEDs are broad-spectrum, so the whole concept doesn't work.

[@BoomBrush]

This "absorption gap" is actually how colourblind glasses work, known as band stop filters. The specific wavelengths it attenuates are the wavelengths that are commonly overlapping between two specific cone colours for a specific type of colourblindness. By blocking a frequency a section of the visible spectrum you give the cones a higher likelyhood of picking up the actual colors instead of the overlap merging the colours into a mushy mixture. At least is how I understand it works - when I looked into it I couldn't find a huge amount of info on it.

[@StrangerHappened]

@@unvergebeneid It would work if the light was "quantum dot". Not sure if there are lamps like that though, let alone street ones (doubt it for now since it is pricier than regular LEDs).

[@jelteklaswijnja4055]

@@StrangerHappened quantum dot lighting makes sense if you intend to pass it trough R or G filters next; (the input already being blue so that doesn't matter) however if you want high CRI white light it's not great. So for most non-screen applications as far as I'm aware quantum dot would not be great.

[@PixelGaming_2020]

This video should be a required showing to students at any school that still offer teaching for analog photography.

[@mattgies]

I used to operate a darkroom in my basement, and I still watched this whole series. You're making me a bit nostalgic here... but not enough to start buying fresh chemicals. Digital is just so dang easy.

[@BrightBlueJim]

Ha! Same here. I found myself wondering, "do I still have my Durst enlarger, or did I get rid of it?" Never mind that my youngest negatives are over 25 years old now.

[@user-ce1cu5my4j]

I think only point left for film these days is medium and large formats. Digital medium is just too expensive and i'm not even talking large.

[@nate8088]

The "uno dos trays" made me snort water out my nose. Thanks for that.

[@gmscott9319]

Especially right after the "...let's ignore that for now." It was a 1-2 punch that really got me in the giggle gland!

[@clarinetJWD]

It reminded me of the opening scene from Fawlty Towers. "There's too much butter on those trays."

[@nthgth]

@@clarinetJWD "no no no, Mr. Fawlty - uno dos trés!"

[@janosnagyj.9540]

@@nthgth No! No no senor, not not an dos tres. no sir. uno, dos, tres. ;) kzbin.info/www/bejne/fl7SeWCKerGWgqc

[@JeffGeerling]

I'm pretty sure at this point half your writing process is research and development. The other half is pun integration!

[@smaakjeks]

Applied punology

[@apeters8]

I think he's puns just come to him. It's natural.

[@IceBergGeo]

Some people just have a knack for being able to have puns abound. Depending on the subject, I think, it you have a sense of humor, puns come naturally.

[@smaakjeks]

@@IceBergGeo True. Blake Smith from the podcast MonsterTalk is just a sentient amalgamation of puns

[@GeneralNickles]

Hey, it's Jeff! I love your videos. Cool to see you on another channel I watch.

[@mjb7015]

I honestly don't think I could have cared less about photography and darkroom processing before this series, but I could literally watch a three-part series about paint drying if it was narrated by you. You have a way of making almost any topic deeply fascinating, just by the way you describe it and talk about it.

[@josephsekavec]

This is so accurate. Ive been binging his content for a week now.

[@matthewb5364]

Just watch, he'll make some video about painting and we'll all be there.

[@JaredConnell]

The enlargement was the most mystifying part of the whole film developing process. I always wondered how a little tiny piece of film became a much larger photo but never imagined it's just like a camera in reverse lmao. Thanks for explaining it finally!!

[@LazerLord10]

That "safeLight" interlude was way more jarring than I would have expected XD

[@androiduberalles]

I was not repaired or replaced

[@lookitsahorner]

TIL Safelite and Autoglass are basically the same thing just with different words in the advert. Same tune. Bri'ish for ya

[@ringsystemmusic]

Brilliant, simply brilliant

[@nvrndingsmmr]

I was making tea while wearing earphones and spazzed out when it happened, nearly had a heart attack! I'm glad I wasn't holding anything at that very moment! Would've been pretty bad! Lol

[@adnamamedia]

I was dying

[@jack002tuber]

This sheds some light on a really dark subject. I appreciate the exposure.

[@swedneck]

It's a relief he didn't dodge our burning questions.

[@molybd3num823]

oh the puns

[@dashcamandy2242]

The series really did develop.

[@RoganGunn]

Agreed. Ignorance of these techniques masks the bigger picture; a problem that will only enlarge with time... unless we fix it.

[@jack002tuber]

@@RoganGunn I shutter to think what would develop if we didn't have people who lens their time to the subject

[@leica_sl2]

AHHHHHHHH YES, The late night/s, stained finger nails fom the Developer , the sore eyes from the safe light , trying to keep the deloper,stop and fixer baths at an even temperature , the wet 8x10 prints hanging and the wait for them to dry , Iremember it all too well.

[@mar4kl]

RE: test prints - Back when we had the darkroom, Dad, whose interests also included building simple electronic gadgets from kits and parts that one could get at Radio Shack, found plans for building a do-it-yourself enlarger light meter. (I'm sure enlarger light meters were available in well-stocked camera stores, but such things were relatively expensive at the time, and Dad had the time and inclination to build his own.) It took some doing to calibrate it, but once we had some basic exposure times figured out and written onto its dial, it became a simple matter to get a perfect exposure on the first try almost every time. All we had to do was frame the image, put the light meter in a fairly neutral spot, turn the dial until the LED went off, and then set the exposure to the time indicated on the dial. We weren't doing any dodging, burning, masking or other tricks, and we weren't experimenting with changing the enlarger lens opening, so it worked pretty well. I have to say we got spoiled by the thing, because it enabled us to churn out dozens of prints in a single afternoon. (Aw, heck, we were spoiled just having a darkroom in the house! Most of our friends had to do all their printing in the high school darkroom, which was a small room off the library and had over a dozen students competing for time slots.)

[@MrDgwphotos]

Light meters for enlarging are quite uncommon, I've never seen nor used one.

[@masterkamen371]

@@MrDgwphotos Maybe he meant densitometer?

[@eherrmann01]

Pro tip: if you need a mask, you can cut one out of a sacrificial test print, rather than making one out of construction paper. Then tape it to a stiff piece of wire as a handle. Great video!

[@VirtuelleWeltenMitKhan]

Yeah, if you have 5 versions of the same picture anyways you can just use it for the perfect picture :D

[@Great_Olaf5]

Yeah, that seemed like the obvious way to do it for me. I assume part of the reason he didn't was because he needed the other prints for the video.

[@austinrose3728]

I was pretty surprised to see that the closed captioning had "daguerreotype" spelled correctly, but then I remembered you painstaking do your own CC because you're awesome.

[@andriypredmyrskyy7791]

I try to mention the cc work on these videos every time. They're impeccable

[@SoupBrains]

and the fun messages he leaves in the captions at the end of his videos! always worth watching until the very end because of that

[@mikemx55]

He also has a strict script. Everything he says is read from a screen. So it may be easier to upload the Cc (not easy, easier)

[@B0Boman]

@@SoupBrains Oh, that's so awesome! Now I have to go back and watch all the videos again to see the Easter Eggs!

[@indenturedLemon]

@@mikemx55 he made a video about that, too

[@MiniMii550]

Since we're in the midst of a photography series I would love to hear about Polaroid and the history of it and how that type of development works

[@Great_Olaf5]

Same. And color photography in general.

[@pincushionllama]

there is a revival of it with lomography.

[@MichaelGriffin_]

It's amazing how you can make a 40 minute video, something I would rarely ever watch, and make it seem almost short. I didn't notice the time on the video till the credits. Great stuff as always.

[@iharpo9292]

I also love that he keeps up the appearence of it being like how its made or some other docuseries but then he sneaks in the joke that really gets you. The safelite was a jumpscare

[@jimbotcb3985]

"it's easy to mess this up at first, but with practice you'll only mess it up occasionally"... this resonated with me

[@havocproltd]

as with so many things in life...

[@darrenweber3308]

I humbly request a video on how different types of paint dry. You're so good at explaining things and making them interesting that I'm sure you could pull it off. I don't even have a dishwasher and I loved both of your dishwasher videos.

[@karl810]

Seconded, I've always been fascinated by the crackle effect generated by using paints with different drying times and loved the Christmas light painting, so I'd love a video that went more in depth and was filled with TCs brand of humour.

[@Duterasemis]

Next week on Technology Connections, we explore modern fertilizer with a 336 hour time-lapse of watching grass grow

[@swanclipper]

i am uncomfortable with this idea and how i would probably genuinely watch with awe and amazement.

[@OperationDarkside]

I'd also suggest a video about watching grass grow

[@randomnickify]

That will be 8 hours livestream.

[@scottperry8388]

I worked in Tower Records Advertising Dept. in the early 90's and though we used computers for some things, we still did most of the designs by hand. They had a full dark room using an AGFA projector for scaling the CD covers, record label logos, and artist photos for newspaper ads, magazine ads and in-store signage that was as big as a VW Bug. It was a very similar process though we weren't printing art prints, It could also warp to scale horizontal or vertically We added screen meshes from 38 to 86 to created little dots patterns in the image for the newspaper prints. This was before most printers could handle the resolution or levels or grayscale patterns needed for final prints. I'm so glad you did this series to show how it used to be and can still be for those who want to continue the tradition of photography.

[@georgehorvath83]

Yeah, I'm having a constant flashback to like 22 years ago, when I spent the best of my teenage years stuck in a darkroom. I'm so happy I still had a hands-on experience with real photography.

[@goldenhourkodak]

You still can today

[@torren5950]

I have binged basically this whole channel in the last 6 weeks or so. I love how the channel started out with as "academic" a tone as possible with some light snark, and has turned into about a joke a minute BUT just as, if not even more, informative. Safe light!

[@pizzaivlife]

are they ever gonna say "replace?" lol

[@cm01]

Not sure why you would bing it when google exists but to each his own.

[@gingerman5123]

I've watched the heat pump videos several times. I've been a big fan for several years now. Welcome!

[@tytycon]

Still snark though! I enjoy the slight snark

[@MonkeyJedi99]

@@cm01 Maybe to avoid feeding yet another point of data about yourself to Alphabet?

[@dorsenator]

My dad is a retired newspaper photographer, and when I was growing up he built a very nice darkroom in the basement. Seeing that Ilford box made me very nostalgic. Thank you for giving me a better understanding of what he was doing in there!

[@swanclipper]

taking photos of the nieghbours wife? was he a spy? newspaper photogropher sound made up like something spider man would do.... your dad was dodgy.

[@nikkiofthevalley]

@@swanclipper I can't tell if you're joking or not..

[@rjc0234]

Holy crap you are so good at teaching. It always used to baffle me how our film would get turned into large printed images. This is such a great explination.

[@ScottDuensing]

The amount of work put into this video is incredible. My entire photography class from school in 40 minutes - including starting with a flashlight and random objects placed on the paper!

[@notmuch_23]

It seems to me that maybe Alec wanted to be a comedian, but found his calling in these more educational types of videos, and inserts jokes to kind of live out that comedian lifestyle a bit. Either that or he sees that the jokes make his videos more popular. Either or way (or another reason entirely), I'm _totally_ here for it!

[@weystrom]

Yeah I really enjoy his sense of humor as well

[@kylekennedy3299]

He knows what we want, to learn stuff and laugh

[@TimothyFrisby]

I knew about the origin of dodging and burning, but I'd never seen it done before, neat. Also explains why Photoshop uses a red tint for its masking tools.

[@ClayAlchemist]

I remember in college discovering how much control over dodging and burning I had in the darkroom using pretty quick moves. I never again wasted time in Photoshop making perfect masks.

[@blasterman789]

One trick i did when I was a journalist at a newspaper was use a dodge wand made with a red filter. This way areas in the print needing dodging also got a contrast increase and looked more seemless. When I migrated to photoshop I followed the same concept. A lot of movies digitally dodge faces that are too dark, but they rarely correct for contrast like I did.

[@ClayAlchemist]

@@blasterman789 I know what you’re saying about dodging faces. Drives me crazy.

[@JohnDlugosz]

The red mask actually comes from Rubylith, which is a physical mask material. I'm sure it was red for similar reasons -- it's black in use, but you can see through it for positioning and doing the tracing. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubylith

[@TastyBusiness]

You're reminding me of the joys of these processes I once spent years of my life on, making me wonder if it's time to dig it all back out again. The modern enlarger timer I had was fun, and wired to the quite ancient enlarger they made an odd couple that was one heck of a workhorse for printing.

[@MCAlexisYT]

*WORKHORSE???*

[@peterpawinski4914]

Wow. I feel so old. I'm 46, and entered photography on the cusp of digital. We never did contact sheets. We would evaluate with a loupe on the light table. You got used to it very quick. That,. in my opinion, was the best, as you can read the negative as it is, and see density and sharpness, and what can be pulled out and what can't. Even when printing, we didn't bother with test strips. You just knew after awhile how to judge negative density what a base print should be exposed for. I don't really miss those days, but there was something zen about being in a darkroom. Photography is still my profession, and it's amazing what has come down the pike. This is a well done introduction to the craft of a wet darkroom. Kudos to you, TC!

[@Lttlemoi]

This really puts into perspective the tremendous amount of work required when those same techniques (dodging, burning, masking) are applied to movie stock to create special effects.

[@jmalmsten]

I'd say that outside very special cases in animation studios. Dodging and burning and masking were never really a part of motion picture labwork. They had "timing" for post work essentially telling the lab how long to expose the whole printed image... And that was about it. They could put the color filters in like shown here and maybe play around with how much silver to retain. You could do some stuff on the camera side with gradated ND filters but in general. Theres no local adjustments. That's where digital intermediates came in and blew the minds of cinematographers who can now reliably relight scenes in post. I guess you could probably do something like it on movies without a DI. But you'd need rock solid registration on both negative and print throughout thelength of the footage. Maybe one could rig something up that would practically be something like an optical printer used for optical compositing. Only instead of sharp mattelines you'd make some sort of contraption that can cast shadows on the print stock. Not impossible. But unless Nolan decides to make a movie about Ansel Adams recreating his darkroom tech on 15 perf 65mm IMAX prints... it'd be hard nowadays to justify the expense for such a contraption. Besides. The results of these local adjustments are only on one print at a time. That makes reproducing it for release prints a chore as you'd need to either meticulously recreate the local adjustments for each interpositive so they can make internegatives for release prints. Or you could maybe produce a black and white adjustment reel that gets bipacked with the negatives for making the contact printed release prints. Man... Imagining taking these steps to movies... That's a rabbithole I never considered. But now I want that IMAX Ansel Adams movie. Mostly because I haven't found any examples of pure black and white on that format outside that thing Douglas Trumbul made that got him the job for Kubrick on 2001. I think it's a sadly unexplored territory of cinematography.

[@jasonreed7522]

@@jmalmsten i have now added a new item to my time traveler bucket list: Bring a few movie directors from the age of film (one from each decade) to see their reactions to what modern CGI in movies and animations can do. Of course the guy from the 1890's may be more blown away with some other modern things, like the entire concept of Amazon prime and 2 day shipping of basically anything, or just modern refrigeration and sanitation standards.

[@Lttlemoi]

@@jmalmsten Oh yes, I didn't mean to imply it was a common technique, but it was done for some special effects shots.

[@KevCampbell]

I first had a wet darkroom at home in 1982, but finally sold everything about 7 years ago - and don't miss it a bit. If the goal is to produce images, rather than to explore physics and chemistry, then I find everything about the digital workflow to be preferable. A well researched and presented series of videos, fun for a trip down memory lane 🙂 Cheers from Naperville.

[@Ni5ei]

Exactly the same for me! Have been doing analog photography and darkroom for ages and although I enjoyed it very much I would never go back. I can understand younger generations finding it very interesting though. But for me it's like CD vs vinyl.

[@pixieloco]

I still have my equipment and use it rarely, but it's there. digital is easier, comfortable, faster, etc. but that's half the fun.

[@peterjf7723]

Same here, I did colour printing as well but I sold all my analogue cameras and wet printing equipment and stock back around 2006 while there were still enough people interested to get a reasonable price for the kit. I still have my Kaiser enlarger, but have packed away the enlarger head and just use the column as a copy stand.

[@DanMoutal]

By any objective measure digital photography is superior. But there is something about analogue photography (and especially dark room printing) that is lost with digital. I miss my time in the dark room, though not enough to do this at home (not that I have the space or time)

[@RCAvhstape]

I did the opposite. Got into photography in the early days of digital, took a class on dark room printing and B/W film, and pretty much gave up digital after that, aside from my smart phone. I spend my day in front of a computer. Doing my hobby on a computer is not cool. Plus, the older antique film cameras will always be cooler than any digital stuff, and don't go obsolete with the next firmware drop.

[@SplicesAndCelluloid]

Film, especially modern film, can store mind boggling amounts of detail. Enlarging and printing in a darkroom is an amazing process and something I think everyone should try.

[@PixelGaming_2020]

It's a fine tuned medium that has over 100 years of improvement behind it. The modern technology of film is just amazing. People say that digital has way higher resolution than film, but I've always questioned that.

[@charliem989]

For a moment I thought I was back in my HS photography class and the last 20 years had been a dream. Amazing vid as usual, was a trip down memory lane. Seeing the phone print got me thinking, it would be cool to do some actual darkroom photoshop and make contact print memes. I might have to setup a darkroom for a future project.

[@FesixGermany]

When my grandfather died and we cleared out his house we found he had a pretty well equipped darkroom with photography stuff. I was around 6 years old so I had no idea what all this stuff was...

[@DonDueed]

My dad had a darkroom setup when I was a kid. The gear was all battleship grade stuff from the 40s and 50s. He had a print dryer too, comprising a heated metal drum with a cloth cover -- you rolled the prints between the cover and drum. I "helped" him sometimes. Usually my job was rocking the developer/stop/fixer trays. These videos have been nostalgia city for me.

[@marscaleb]

This honestly has me amazed at how photographic technology grew. This whole process took a LOT of experimentation and money to figure out!

[@nvrndingsmmr]

What a wonderful trip down memory lane! I haven't been in a dark room since high school! The filters, the easel, all this equipment is so nostalgic! Thanks for this, what a great watch!

[@Zerbey]

Always been curios how old school photographers did their work, just shows how much dedication they had to their craft and how easy we have it these days with digital photography.

[@goldenhourkodak]

Although digital photography is worse in many ways. I no longer shoot digital at all.

[@K-o-R]

"Uno, dos, trays." _Fantastic._

[@jhdore]

Pretty fly for a black and white guy.

[@chowmediavaca]

Hahahahaha

[@MidnightSt]

I love how you word the explanations in such a way that they sound like a thought process of someone currently trying to figure out for the first time how to do that stuff :)

[@eseagente]

This has been my favorite series of yours. You have a great way to make a 40 minute video flow smoothly, transitioning through very interesting stuff. Your explanations are flawless, and I hope to see more stuff by you on film. Thank you very much for making this!

[@SquireJethro]

Brings back a lot of memories from when I worked on the HS yearbook in the late 70's. For those who have never had the pleasure, note how many test strips and prints required to get one print right. Incredibly time and material intensive. Ironically, these days with Photoshop, there is zero material waste, but I find I can spend the same amount of time tweaking a single image.

[@user443]

When you returned from the series of nested lighting tangents to the actual topic at hand, it felt like Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird coming back from its 27 guitar solos. It felt great! Like the release of a good sneeze.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Like a TV show concluding a plot arc after a couple of filler episodes.

[@sillydrizzy2985]

Love this series Alex. So many memories My mom use to do photography for the local paper...mainly sports...so would get home late after the game, sleep a few hours and then get up early to meet a 5 or 6 am deadline. Often I'd be there helping her before school, and I remember so much of this gear. It's great to understand more of the 'why' I was doing all those things.

[@jayhom5385]

Never did any photography but your part about masking, filtering etc. reminded me of document editing where "cut and paste" meant a ruler, x-acto knife, clean sheet of paper, and some white paste.

[@cerberaodollam]

I'm older than CtrlC CtrlV... RIP

[@scottmatznick3140]

I love how purely uncontroversial your channel is. You have defined your own lane of which you stay solidly within the bounds. Your videos are like a welcome trip back to the eighties not only in technology many times but also in attitude. Being that I was born in 86 (raised in Wheaton BTW) I could be completely wrong but I'm gonna believe I'm not either way.

[@OrigamiMarie]

In this video he added a very small thing that shows his stance on something very controversial, and I very much appreciate it.

[@gFamWeb]

@@OrigamiMarie what is it? 🤔

[@OrigamiMarie]

@@gFamWeb it's right over his head, it's a coat hanger with a red line through it. This is a pro-choice symbol.

[@gFamWeb]

@@OrigamiMarie fascinating

[@randomassortmentofthings]

@@OrigamiMarie I pointed it out to my dad but he didn't get it. We watch these videos together.

[@daederosss]

Low pressure sodium lamps are still used for street lamps on the island of Hawaii (though now being replaced by LEDs). Probably to reduce light pollution for the observatories. In addition to being dimmer, astronomers can just filter out the 589nm in their data processing.

[@StrokeMahEgo]

Are the LEDs set to the same color? Keeps the ease of filtering, but because LED, uses less energy.

[@D-Vinko]

@@StrokeMahEgo LEDs shift in wavelength as they age, but it's fairly slow and can be adjusted back. The way we used to avoid pollution in the street lighting industry is with light hoods. Normally they're used to block light from entering complaining homeowners windows, because I can cast a shadow over their window with it. The same is applied to the top of a fixture to prevent the bulb from losing light into the sky. Reflectance can't be controlled except for by the dude that engineered the sidewalk. Monochrome LEDs are real cool, and they stay relatively consistent throughout their operating lifetime, and they do tend to be the type used by observatories as the localities realize the increase in efficiency means less cost.

[@5roundsrapid263]

The city I live in is still primarily lit with LPS lamps. The very newest street lamps are LED, because their supply of LPS bulbs has run out. It’s a bit jarring to drive down the street, and see vivid white light in the middle of a yellow sea.

[@johnsonwang7253]

Holy crap, I love this channel so much. You have this uncanny knack of not only bringing attention to hobbies and interests that I care about but also covering random and niche aspects about them that I normally rant to my friends about because these things tend to out of common public awareness. Please never stop making videos, man!

[@MaisieSqueak]

You explained all of this SO well... I'm absolutely fascinated by all the techniques.

[@StubbyPhillips]

BTW, I DID work in a professional photofinishing lab and what I'm doing here is being very entertained by someone who seems way too young to know so much about "real" photography!

[@teknikal_domain]

Hey, the old techniques are still around, even if they're not as prominent. I'm probably a decent decade *younger* than Alec here, but videos like these (and a dash of eccentricity) are what keep people like me literally re-organizing closet space to store bottles of photochemistry. Anyways, (not even making this up), I'm going back to developing a roll of black and white 120 film just to mildly amuse a friend as I'm watching this. Too bad I can't get to this step yet.. *yet.*

[@PainterVierax]

"analog" photography is just like all the other techniques who've been digitalised now : There will still be a niche of enthusiasts who perpetuate those ancient techniques.

[@jclosed2516]

@@PainterVierax Well - There are still specialized analogue photographic techniques that are not (yet?) digitized or even possible to digitize. I am using one of those techniques called Holography. I use special film (PFG-01 film from GEOLA) and a diode laser to capture real 3D images from objects that can be viewed on different angles (you can even see stuff behind objects in one angle, that's blocked on another angle). As far as I know this is not reproducible in any digital form (at least not in a affordable way).

[@w.t.5136]

im 16 and I got my own home darkroom. The color chemistry I do is completely unknown even by PHD darkroom tech's. Age dosent really mean a thing anymore when curious people have the internet archives and ebay ;)

[@w.t.5136]

@@jclosed2516 Do you do full color holography? I got some Lippmann plates im going to make some full color holograms on soon. There are already ways to do digital holograms, I learned about a few sort of classified types for GEOINT use. They will get cheaper once people realize what capturing reality really means. But yes I agree with you, I shoot film only because digital is horrible. Its algorithmic sharpness is uncanny and its dynamic range is horrid. Digital interference screens are the future, and thats why Im getting a PHD in photonic engineering and sciences.

[@trimeta]

Years ago, my local science museum had a traveling exhibition that included (among other things) a booth with a low-pressure sodium arc lamp and a bunch of colored objects. It was a really trippy experience: not just seeing everything around you rendered in black and "white," but seeing yourself too, appearing like an old-timey photograph come to life.

[@XXPiggyzXX652544]

You put so much care into these videos it's incredible. The captions, the sensory warnings for sound and light, just the everything is so perfect I'm so grateful I found your channel

[@dragiceryudo5745]

This is such an amazing series. Thank you for covering this.

[@OneMadPhotographer]

I've been shooting black and white film since the 80's and have to say your presentation was flawless. You demonstrated perfectly the process as well as the effort to produce a photograph using the wet method.

[@blasterman789]

I should mail him some of my technical pan 35mm negs. When developed for pictorial values tech pan was shocking.

[@harryf9885]

I am so proud to have been officially watching this wonderful channel for “a while” ❤️

[@Mister6]

I learned and did all this in summer camp in the 70s. Getting so much nostalgia from this series!

[@rmhbernoff]

Great video! I worked as a digital-only pro photographer for a few years. I always enjoy learning about how analog photography works -- every time, I get some insight into the parallels between the two media.

[@Kapeltokko]

TC: There is a critical piece of equipment I haven't talked about yet. Also TC: Let's ignore it for now. Me: Argh! No!

[@DrewDvorak]

That line got me good.

[@curlybrace314]

I took a photography class in high school and all of this is reminding me of just how work-intensive making prints is. I love it!

[@DanSpotYT]

Same here! I can still smell the different chemicals in my noggin.

[@ComanderCool909]

I just want to say how much i appreciate your videos, quality is impeccable, facts are reliable, warnings about flashing lights etc feel organic and the quirks ("by the by the by the way") are the perfect amount of humor to break up a long, information dense video. Please never change!

[@rflsms]

One of your best videos yet, I loved it!

[@SirWaddlesworth]

I'm a hobbyist photographer, but I've basically only ever shot digital my whole life. I knew vague stuff about developing film, including that dodging and burning used to be done in the darkroom (though not knowing how.) Mostly this is because I've read about famous photographers like Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson. This was definitely an insightful video!

[@michaelcherry8952]

Man, does this bring back memories! I spent several years working in the darkroom of an aerial survey company, doing film processing and printing. I swear I could lift weights with my pupils after all the exercise they got! Going through the light trap door into the main part of the lab after being in the darkroom under safelights for a while almost felt like a physical blow. I still think film processing and printing is a kind of magic. Makes me want to set up a darkroom of my own.

[@almeisam]

Oh the nostalgia. I used to do my own B&W developing and printing back in the 1970's. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

[@underscoredestroyer]

Excellent & informative video as always! Thank you for the soft transitions between dark and light -- such a simple accommodation but it makes a big difference.

[@Turk380]

Thanks for the nostalgia. graduated college with a fine art degree in photography, just in time for the entire industry to get taken over with digital. :/ have literally not used any of those skills since and pivoted to a career in IT. Yep, sold out to The Man. Felt a literal pain in my chest when you flashed that Ilford paper box. I was the weirdo in all my classes that was an Ilford junkie while everyone else was all about Kodak or Agfa.

[@jimurrata6785]

Ciba-Geigy... Cibachrome prints from slide film like Ektachrome have wonderful color saturation and are almost as simple as B&W prints.

[@rty1955]

@@jimurrata6785 inised thay with great results.made my own drum turner and cibachrime was single shot chemistry as well. Same as my big kryptonite processor. I can process b&w, e6, c41 etc all with single shot chemistry. I have a 24" paper processor too

[@bleiglanz]

Photography always seemed like a black box to me, so thanks for shedding some light on the topic.

[@googiegress7459]

He does a great job putting everything into focus.

[@michaels83]

Some 20+ years ago when I was back in High School I took 4 years of Photo/Graphic Arts and this video brought back many happy memories for me of that time. I enjoyed the Photographic side much more than the digital side of it(PSP was a pain to use). Thank you for the great video and I hope some people got to learn a bit from it.

[@georgelubitz3016]

That double negative joke at the top of the segment was absolute silver oxide

[@tim1724]

Low-pressure sodium lamps are still widely used for streetlights in San Diego County due to the Palomar Observatory. (Telescopes can be fitted with filters to block the 589.0 and 589.6 nm wavelengths from the sodium lamps.) Monochromatic LEDs are starting to replace sodium lamps near many observatories but the sodium lamps are still common near Palomar.

[@sjk2111]

"Metallic Sodium really hates being itself." Me too Metallic Sodium. Me too.

[@collin4555]

So that's why streetlamps get mentioned in Memory

[@meta.aesthetica]

You really did a fantastic job of taking us though this process. Even for those who are familiar with darkroom work, it is a thoroughly entertaining refresher on the subject. You could show this in schools! Great stuff, well done and thank you!

[@InCartersEyes]

I am a student in photography and this was so cool to watch. ive been doing a few projects on film recently, and all of this series coming up in my recommended was just the icing on the cake.

[@raybyrnes3516]

This brings me back to high school art class. I remember the processes but I was never very good at making photos that looked any better than too-dark-grey and black mess. This exposure time and chemical stuff is an art in itself

[@BrightBlueJim]

My biggest problem then, reminds me of why I went digital: every print cost me money, and I was too stingy to do enough test prints to get just what I was looking for, so I was never satisfied with my results. This got even worse when I started doing color printing!

[@darrenvincent2292]

I really enjoyed your recent photography series. You put so much high quality information in a short period of time with great delivery!

[@fergar0206]

Man this just took me back to my high school photography class (I'm only 26 but we still did it like this at least for the first couple of years). Kinda wanna get back into darkroom printing, it's just hard finding the space and justifying the gear when film scanning is so much easier.

[@UpLateGeek]

I always assumed printing photos was more of a scienticious affair, I never knew there was so much skill was involved. It's almost as if it's equal parts art and science.

[@charleslambert3368]

Most science is also like this.

[@PainterVierax]

@@charleslambert3368 most arts as well require a huge amount of techniques and skills.

[@swanclipper]

It's like most constructive activities, from scaffolding and architecture to music and sculpting. sure, it can be scientific and formulaic. but when it's not, it's something special.

[@kevind814]

It never seemed this complicated in the high school dark room developing and printing photos for the yearbook. Though we didn't mess with the "standard" settings and timings and just blamed any bad prints on the photographer for their lack of skills in taking the photos. :)

[@CrustedCheese]

That LPS lamp was definitely woth the 3,5 year wait

[@Blizzardmane]

Absolutely fantastic video, I've been so excited for this series and every new episode makes me giddy.

[@CynicalDriver]

Honestly... One your best videos. Thank you.

[@artemisrose3065]

Love the work you put into these and all the puns! Never stop punning! When you said "just scratched the surface" my immediate thought was "don't want to be doing that to the photo paper!" 😂

[@mrb692]

One fun thing I did back in my high school days was do pretty much exactly that first contact print demo with the stuff straight on a sheet of paper. We also made and used a coffee can pinhole camera, and developed those images as well. If you decide to make another video about film, could you do a segment on double exposures? Those were fun to mess around with

[@SRG-Learn]

Awesome as always. Thanks for sharing.

[@willjosephson]

I have a good amount of expertise in photo printing, but this is the first time I've heard contrast filters so well explained. Thank you!

[@RCAvhstape]

I've been doing dark room printing for about 15 years or so, and this video is as good a primer as one could ask for. Your simple explanations of the chemistry, safe lamp, and so on, are very much appreciated. I will recommend this to my friends, especially the n00bs in the dark room for whom this stuff isn't intuitive yet. Excellent work!

[@samhicks7430]

Being a Xray repair tech in my past, love watching this. It was fun dealing with X-ray film and film development. Thanks for the memories!

[@Robnord1]

In days of old, I was an x-ray tech. The repair and service techs were some of my best friends. We made a huge pinhole camera, and using 14x17 film, shot and processed the gigantic negatives on the night shift when supervisors were sleeping. Good times!

[@ChadDoebelin]

A few months back, destin did a "smarter every day" episode called "how does film actually work?" problem was, he didn't exactly bother to explain how it works, it seemed more of an advertisement for the company that develops the film. i was VERY disappointed, and ended the video scratching my head. This video is more in the spirit of "how does film actually work" thank you so much for making this clear to me and helping me understand and doing it right.

[@SuperPogu]

This was very nice to watch! I used to help my father in his professional darkroom in the late eighties-early nineties. This brought back so many memories! He's been gone for years now, but I'm pretty sure his old darkroom stuff is still in the family. I may have to dust it off and paper up the bathroom window.

[@bacoose]

You've made me so nostalgic for my high school photography class, but I'm so glad you explained why/how things work the way they do! I always had a basic grasp but beyond teaching how to initially do things, my teacher was very hands off. The burning/dodging/masking thing is so wild, I love learning the origin of tools/symbols. Like always, a fantastic informational video.

[@novelezra]

"Those seeds are immediately embiggened" This is not a cromulant phrase.

[@KurosakiYukigo]

That seems perfectly cromulant.

[@novelezra]

@@KurosakiYukigo Want a johnny cake?

[@bluesman99999]

This is a great series! I had a very rudimentary understanding of photographic developing/printing, but you made it very clear and understandable. Great job!

[@meafanaronelbuzon]

your videos are GOLD! Thanks for the time you take to deliver such quality content!

[@Paul_Wetor]

Darkrooms often had the sign: Please leave the door closed or all the dark leaks out.

[@peterrenn6341]

You can buy big drums of dark to re-stock it. I prefer the Ilford darkness as it seems just a tad deeper in tone than the Kodak, but it may be my imagination :-|

[@mafiacat88]

I can genuinely say this series has gotten me interested in finally using my grandfathers film cameras.

[@IndyJay53]

Wow. This process is (or can be) so much more nuanced than I imagined. Thanks for enlightening, or should I say, "exposing" us to this fascinating journey from subject to object!

[@Jeremy666x]

This was so fun to watch! Thank you!