The Marxist Darkroom: Part 1 – Appropriating the Means of Production

In the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx outlines the source of power held by the bourgeoisie: the means of production. So what is a “means of production”? In the case of photography, the direction has become lately that we purchase cameras from places such as Blacks, Best Buy, Futureshop and Wall-Mart. We then take our images, and must return to a Blacks or Wall-Mart to obtain prints. Meanwhile, our camera equipment becomes obsolete, usually every year or two – forcing us to by more. Thus begins a cycle of dependence and consumption that feeds the elite and suppresses the proletariat.

So, with this darkroom project – I attempt to break that cycle by appropriating my means of photographic production. I chose the medium of film (specifically black and white process Ilford HP5) due to it being obsolete enough to be cheap, recent enough to be readily available and developed enough to produce highly detailed, artistic images.

Lets start with the camera equipment: a Canon AE-1 Program 35mm circa 1985ish. It’s in great working order, inherited from my father and as a bonus came with a 50mm f1.8, 55-250mm f3.5-4, Canon A550 Speedlight and a power film advance. In addition I will be using two medium format cameras: an Anesco Clipper (1950s) and Brownie Target Six-16 (1930s). Both acquired from thrift stores, also in excellent working order.

The darkroom is a rather large walk in closet in our condo in Windsor. After I kicked the cat’s litter box and food out of it I proceeded to make it light-tight with some weatherstripping around the door. The safe-light is a $2 purpose-built bulb I acquired from Photo Outfitters – the locally owned ma and pa camera shop. The chemistry and basics, sadly were acquired from the local Henry’s, who’s employees are about as useless with film photography as one can imagine. I purchaised (without help):

Ilford Ilfosol 3 Developer – for Film
Ilford Multigrade Developer – for Paper
Ilford Stop Bath
Ilford Rapidfix Fixer
Kodak Professional Wetting Agent
A 650ml Developing Canister – 2 rolls capable of 35mm, 120 and 125
A thermometer

This past Wednesday, my first step was to produce a proof-of-concept that I could develop the film myself. For those of you who arn’t familiar with film – this means chemically producing the image on negatives and rendering them no longer sensitive to light. It has nothing to do with the actual printing of an image.
The process involves locking yourself in a totally dark room, popping open the film canister, snipping the ends off the film and spooling it into a reel and then popping it into the light-tight canister. At this point you can turn on the lights. Next the canister is filled with developer, stop bath and then fixer in a highly precise and involved process.
My first roll, I made the rookie mistake of assuming I could have my safe light on while loading the film into the canister… boy was I wrong. After an hour of intense developing I discovered the entire roll was exposed and ruined. After correcting this mistake my second and third rolls turned out awesome.

I had done it, proved I was capable of developing my own film. The next piece of the plan was to be able to take my negatives and print them on paper. Now-a-days this is done with giant machines in the back of shoppers drug marts that only the trained employees can use. In the old days, it was done with a device similar in form to the overhead projector your grade 3 biology teacher used to write on. It’s called an “enlarger” and brand new they can run $200 to several thousand. That’s at least $150 over my budget, and to buy one from Henry’s wouldn’t exactly be sticking it to the man now would it?

My next installment in this series will deal with acquiring and using an enlarger. I’ll be adding pictures as they’re developed so stay tuned.