I joined another B/W film dev class

I guess if there’s a film development class within 20 miles of my vicinity, I’m going to find out?

This time, we developed 35mm film and spent more class time developing prints of various sizes. Here in the Keweenaw, there is an art center that offers classes and workspace for a variety of mediums. They’re in the process of re-establishing the darkroom space—complete with a huge sink, two darkroom enlargers, and lots of old printing paper that’s been gathering dust for decades.

I still have my Holga 120mm negatives from the last class, so I also got to try creating some prints of those!

Once a week for five weeks, my three classmates and I spent our evening hours practicing film dev skills. We mixed the chemicals, rolled our film onto coils (35mm is smaller than 120mm, so it was a little more challenging this time), developed the film, and then used the enlargers to create prints.

There are many variables to consider: paper type and age, how long to expose to light, how long to develop in the bath, contrast filters, dodging and burning, and more that I’m probably forgetting.

In my last class experience, we were using a makeshift art space and relied on light-proof bags to keep our film safe. While I loved how that class proved you could develop film from almost anywhere, I loved trying out a real darkroom experience.

Like the last class, I had varied success with printing, but I’m excited to see what turned out—and try more!