Most archaeological photographs, when taken with film, use a black and white media. I have had no experience in the actual development of film, since I am used to the digital method of using a printer with photo paper, so I was looking forward to learning about how this was done. This post will share what we were taught about how film is developed.
I always thought that darkrooms used red light and so was disappointed to discover that many dark rooms do not use a red light since that is still light and will damage film. So how does the actual film go from being in your camera with a latent image on it to a photo in your hand?
The film has a silver powder on it that reacts to light: lots of light equals lots of silver and little light equals only a little silver. This is what makes the negative image on the film. Thus, the film must be rewound in the cartridge before the back of the camera is opened (so as not to overexpose it).
Once this is done the film needs to be extracted from the cartridge and wound around a specially designed spool. This needs to be done in complete darkness. The cartridge is ripped open and the film extracted (be sure not to have wet hands as this can cause some swelling in the film). Then the spool is dropped in a canister and the canister is filled with a liquid chemical solution that fixes the silver onto the film in a permanent way so that the film can be exposed to light. All of this has to be done in complete darkness, which means that sometimes things can go wrong (like if you drop something and can’t turn on a light to find it). However, once the film is in the canister and the lid on then the lights can be turned on.
Once the negatives have been made permanent you will need an enlarger to impress the image onto photo paper. The enlarger is like a projector that shines light through a filter and through one frame of the negative at a time onto a flat surface below where the photo paper is. This has to be done in near darkness as the photo paper that is used is naturally sensitive to light as the film was.
When the image has been exposed to the photo paper, the paper needs to go through a few washes (this is usually the part where you see the red light used in movies). The first bath is in the developer liquid for about 1½ minutes. Then the photo has to be put in a stop bath to stop the development. Then it has to be washed in water to get the stop agent off of the paper. Once this is done the paper needs to be dried. This can be done by hanging the photo paper from a line with clothes pins or by putting it through a special drier.
The whole process is not complicated. However, where it begins to get complicated is in the various methods used during the enlarging process. Just like when the original picture was shot there are lots of variables to account for, in this process there are also many variables: the amount of light used to expose the photo, the strength of the filter used, the amount of time the paper is exposed, etc.
I came away from the process with a healthy and newfound respect for the professionals that make a living this way. Certainly the world I came from (point and shoot, upload digital photos, manipulate image in Photoshop, and print digital photos on a desktop printer) takes skill, but to do it the old fashioned way takes skill and a ton of talent that I had not realized before.
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