i am a senior at edgewater high school this year and i have a senior project to do. i chose my topic to be photography. i am going to develop my own black and white photos and put together a scrap book of my senior year. i was woundering if anyone could tell me some good books, magizines, videos, or web sites that could explain in good detail how to develope black and white film. also, if any of you have some in put i would love to read it. thanks

-- sabrina marie felger (sunshi112@aol.com), November 11, 2001

Answers

Sabrina: does your school have a photo class? If so, that would be the most help in the shortest time.The teacher might be willing to help, even if you aren't enrolled in the class. Otherwise, a photo store might be able to help with recommendations about basic darkroom information. One viable option, should you decide not to develop your own is to load your camera with a chromogenic film like Kodak's, or Ilford XP 400, and let the one hour photo shop in your neighborhood do your processing. Hopefully, you can find a photo shop employee who actually knows something about film and photo processes. Good luck with your project!

-- Carl Crosby (humminboid@aol.com), November 12, 2001.

I have a web site that essentially specializes in advanced darkroom techniques. You can get developing times, sources for chemicals, formulas, etc. at UnblinkingEye.Com.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edb@unblinkingeye.com), November 29, 2001.

Agfa have a fair explanation on their website, showing film developing and other things. Worth a read.

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@unite.com.au), November 29, 2001.

The first thing to do is reel your film in a light safe bag and place it in the developing tank with a light safe lid. The first step is using D-76, a developer. Use 5 oz of water and 5 oz of D76 per roll of film. Put it into the tank with the lid on shake for 15 seconds int. and then for 5 seconds every 30 sec for 11 min. When done dump it out and pour in fixer, 10 oz for each roll. Follow the same instructions as for the d76 but do it for 6-8 min. dump that out then puor water into the tank and adgitate it for a minute. dump out the water and pour in photoflo (10 oz per roll)and shake it for a full minute. dump the photo flo and fill the tank with water and adgitate it for 5 min straight. dump out the water and take out you neg. using a neg wipe, wipe only the side that has the kodak along the edges facing you the right way. Hang them up to dry and you're all done. If you can't do this b/c the chem cost alot, buy the kodak film that can be processed using c-41 processing. You can't process this in your own darkfroom. It's much cheaper b/c you can mark on the envelop that it's color film and it takes the normal time to process to rather than 2 weeks. I hope i told you all the right stuff, i'm a junior in a photo class so i'm really sorry if i switched anything around. Good Luck and have fun!

-- ashley e.h. (ashels14@hotmail.com), January 05, 2002.

Sabrina: How goes the senior project? Are you having fun yet?

-- Carl Crosby (humminboid@aol.com), January 25, 2002.