I haven’t posted in
a long time – i have been spending the last month or so setting up my darkroom
and working through my backlog of negatives that i want printing. I do plan on shooting some film again soon
but at the moment i can’t seem to tear myself away from the enlarger. Im sure ill scan my prints soon and make a
blog about them.
Anyway, to the
point! Im not the richest man in the
world at the moment as my wife is currently off work sick, so were on a reduced
income. The only way i got my darkroom
kit was because i sold some of my old music equipment that i wasn’t using
anymore and the seller only wanted a very small amount for it (it was a
ridiculous bargain considering all the gear i got). Anyway, after buying my darkroom kit i needed
a simple, low-cost way of light-proofing the spare room so i could print
without worrying about fogging the paper.
I should say that my spare room consists of one door and one tall window
so it wasn’t too big a project.
I spent a few hours
online (in work time, obviously) looking for solutions which others had found. Now there’s a lot of information online about
light-proofing – some people suggesting draught excluders, felt, and even
dedicated blackout material. I didn’t feel
that any of these solutions were for me though as i live in a rented house and
i didn’t want to do any nailing or screwing.
In the end i hit
upon a solution that has worked really well for me so far and cost £3 to setup. If you go to B&Q or any other DIY type
store you can pick up these rubble sacks:
I remember using them a few years ago for some garden work i
was doing. They’re thick, and most
importantly black. I bought a bag of 10
and then all i needed to do was head home and gaffer tape the bags over my
window. There was still some light
soaking through even though the window was covered so i taped another layer of
bags over to create a double layer. At
this point you need to make sure that there’s no light leaking through from
your gaffer tape - make sure you press it down firmly onto your wall. I decided to keep the curtain over the window
as an extra layer of defence.
.
There wasn’t much
light coming in through the door but it definitely needed protecting. I remembered i still had a box of curtains
that were left in the house by the previous tenants when we moved in so i dug
one out. All along the top of the
curtain were hoops for the curtain rail to go through. I hammered a tack into the top-left and
top-right of the door frame and hung the curtain on them using the hoops. Although some light still seeps through its
fine as i ran some tests and my paper hasn’t fogged at all.
So there you have it
– a simple, removable and cheap way to light-proof a room. I just thought i would post this in case
anyone was having similar difficulties to me in getting setup. As always if you have any questions just
contact me on the blog. Happy printing!
