B&W Photography - Darkroom!

Earlier this week, more specifically Tuesday (the 2nd), I had my first darkroom experience. We had to have taken 2 rolls of pictures over the weekend, and have the film in hand in class on Tuesday morning. During class we developed one of the roll of negatives! The process was pretty tedious, and I was glad I found a partner to do it with the first time, or else.....it probably would have gotten messed up!
SO...this is what we had to do (for people that don't know the process behind it)....

1.  First we prepared the chemistry...1:9 of 2 oz of developer and 18 oz of 68* water and combine them. Also we prepared 20ish oz of 68* water.
2. Then we collected the supplies we would need:

• bottle opener
• sissors
• roll of film
• plastic (or metal) canister
• A stem for the canister
• Plastic reel
• Funnel (light safe) lid for the canister
• flexible lid for the canister

    3. We had to set all the supplies out, so that we knew where they were and put the stem into the canister.
    4. Turn out the lights (no light anywhere)
    5. Open the film canister with the bottle opener (fromt he flat side, and push the knob up to get the film out), and cut the L shape off the roll of film with the sissors.
    6. Feed the film onto the reel and twist sides of the reel to wind the film in it.
    7. Once its fed all the way through, cut/tear the tape off the end, and stick the reel onto the stem in the canister, we had partners so there were 2 reels of film in it.
    8. Put the funnel lid on the canister, and twist it on till it locks. And put the flexible lid on.
    9. Now the lights can go back on.
  10. We then took off the lid and poured the developer and water in the canister and agitated (turn the canister over, and back) for the first 30 seconds. Then repeat the agitation every min for 10 seconds for 10 minutes.
  11. Then comes the Water Stop Bath. We had to fill and dump the canister 3-4 times with cool water.
  12. After that, we fixed the film. This takes 5 minutes doing the same agitation for 10 seconds every minute for 5 minutes.
  13. After the film is fixed you pour the fix back in the jug, because it contains silver, and that cannot be put down the drain.
  14. After pouring it back into the jug, you wash the film again, but this time, fill and dump 10 times with cool water.
  15.When it is thoroughly washed, we removed the fix, with fix remover/ permawash. This we agitated for 2 minutes straight.
  16. After the 2 minutes of agitation, we set in a bin with cool running water for 10 minutes.
  17. Once it was washed for 10 minutes in the running water, we had to put it in this stuff called photoflo for 30 seconds. It keeps the film from fogging up.
  18. THEN, after taking the film off the reel, our dark room has a film dryer, and you leave it in there for 20 min or until its dry. You can tell if its dry by the film curling towards the emulsion side.

And there you go! The next step is contact sheets and printing. but that'll be another post :)