It’s time I made an update to the darkroom blog after a bit over a year. Still not doing as much work out there as I thought, but I retired this year so things will pick up. The biggest change, and the purpose of this post, is the lighting.

It all started innocently enough. When constructing the darkroom, I placed simple bare-bulb fixtures in the ceiling for white light. I fully intended to replace them eventually with something a bit more elegant, but barely; say, basic bedroom fixtures.

We were in an antique mail one day, and I found this red beaded fixture and my wife suggested (perhaps not seriously) that it could be a safelight. In a moment of whimsy, I bought the thing, since I had already had a non-safe red light bulb in the darkroom for the times I needed more light for a brief time but didn’t want to loose my “night vision”. I thought that the cheap plastic beads could at least serve that purpose and be a bit of fun.

Then we had this nickel chandelier that I had removed from the house when we did a bit of minor remodeling. It came from what was intended to be a dining room, but we have never used it for that, and so a chandelier in the middle of the room was not needed. I thought, why not have this in the darkroom? Well, I had two electrical boxes for lights, so I really needed something else. Another day in another antique mall (it’s a hobby) and I scored the gold one for $10! I do not remember what I paid for the red beads, but I fear it was more than $10.

Anyway, a bit of whimsy for the darkroom décor. Seriously, why not?

As it stands, the red beads are an actual safelight, since I put a Brightlab™ safelight bulb in it. It is switched separately at the moment, since I still need to do some more tests. If it tests safe, then I will have come up with something else for my red worklight. It never ends …

From the post on October 31 of last year:

Still to be done:

• Film drying rack.
• Make a frame for the print drying racks.
• Get a new air compressor.
• Better tray storage.
• Storage for the enlarger lenses.

The film and print drying racks were done timely, as was the procurement of the air compressor. Alas, the enlarger lenses are still in a cardboard box and the trays are still haphazardly stacked under the sink.

I’ve also discovered a new light leak due to cracked seams due to the building shifting. These things are inevitable and unavoidable; and easily fixed with some caulk and paint, but …

It never ends …