Darkroom Diaries - January 25th 2025

Just a day before Scotland was battered by storm Èowyn, everything was shut, emergency messages were pushed onto everyone's phones, and to be honest I was half expecting this darkroom session to be cancelled altogether. On the day while driving to Edinburgh the darkest cloud suddenly started pouring ice and snow onto everyone, which caused master caution alarm in my car, and it refused to operate in cruise control mode.

Stills gallery was open as usual though, and people were back queueing to the analog photomat on the ground floor.

I've brought more film from 2024 for contact sheets printing. This now feels like the most overlooked way of picking potential frames for printing. For sure, it takes time to print contact sheets, but also it makes up in frames that would be overlooked otherwise. Having a tiny print in full color is still better than a digital scan.

More contacts were printed.

My pack of 12x16" glossy paper was running thin - in fact I've managed to finish it this time and have to order more now. I love printing large, and in theory the Thermaphot processing machine at Stills could develop paper with sizes up to 20x24". However there are quite a few additional issues with the prints of that size - not the least the risk of paper jamming in the Thermaphot, as well as the whole logistical issue. Selling prints of that size also would effectively require rolling them into a tube - and shipping become much more expensive too. So for now I'll stick to 12x16" - at least until there's enough interest for something even larger.

Printed this shot of city flowers - originally filmed in Tallinn, Estonia on Kodak Ektar film and Hasselblad camera. Print size is 12x12", and I've used up most of my remaining 12x16" stock to get this one. Limited amount of prints are available in the Print Shop.

Printed a shot of snowy mountain in Glencoe Valley - also shot on Kodak Ektar film and Mamiya RB67 camera. Printed on smaller 10x12" paper in full landscape glory - with one print on the last remaining sheet of 12x16". Limited quantity of the 10x12" prints are available in the Print Shop.

Also this week was soft launch of the print shop. Extra shout out to Secret Edinburgh on BlueSky for reposting my post on launching print shop here on Alba Pictures! There are still zero sales, but maybe in a year or few we'll take this tiny creative business off the ground!