Knowing this it should come as no surprise that I have long planned to spend some time immersed in the photography facilities that Kingston University has to offer. Having finally found my way to the black and white darkrooms last year I turned my attention to a longer standing goal- to conquer the colour darkroom.
As part of a focus week the opportunity did finally arise. I film which I had shot over the summer was duly developed at Jessops so that I had some negatives ready to process, and some sample pictures to give an idea of how the final image should look.
The pictures came back from Jessops and were not entirely satisfactory- I however selected a photograph to try to replicate, and was assured that I could personally reduce the yellow tint which the shop printed image contained.
The process of colour developing is somewhat more complex than that for black and white. Rather than just controlling the amount of light reaching the photographic paper, one also has to control different levels of light using a series of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow filters. The only way to get the combination of levels right is a lot of practise, and countless test strips.
The photos below show some of my prints from the day and detail the progression from test strips to a final print.
Test strip to gauge exposure time:
First exposure:
Second Exposure- Increase yellow filter:
Final exposure- Reduce aperture, Reduce exposure time, increase yellow filter:
