Making Color Darkroom Prints Pt 1: Thinking

In a ratio of 2:1, I have shot more black and white film than I do color. If you look at my photography since I retired from teaching music at a public elementary school, the ratio would be more like 4:1. Nowadays, the only occasions I shoot color film are:

1.  family gathering

2.  garden walks

My color film workflow differs from my black and white film workflow, in that I always scan my color film. Since I got serious about darkroom printing more than two years ago, I no longer scan my black and white film. Why? Because I do not allow the scans to have the final say on what my photography looks like. That job goes to the darkroom prints I make. If you see a photography of mine online, chances are that you are seeing a scan of the print, not the negative.

There are disadvantages to this. The biggest one is that the majority of my images do not see the light of online day. In the past, I would post any image that I thought half decent. Now, you only see the ones I print in the darkroom. If you follow Uncle Jonesy's Cameras Podcast on Instagram and Facebook, you probably think that I am shooting less and less these days. In fact, I shoot about the same as I always have, and I develop every roll either at home (B&W) or at my community darkroom (color). But I only share the images I deem worthy to print, and I have quite a backlog of those. It's easy to load a camera and photography. Printing takes time and perseverance. I love it. 

Garden Friend, Gibbs Gardens near Ball Ground, Georgia
I'd love to print this someday.

The exception to this practice of sharing only prints is color images. Why? Because I have not yet made a color darkroom print. Sure, I could make inkjet prints of my color scans. In fact I have done this often with my flower and garden photography. I love to make small prints of fleeting blooms and give them away to my fellow condo residents or to friends and family through the mail. To me, these prints are throwaways. Why? Because even though my Canon printer does a decent enough job at least to my eyes, deep down inside I do not trust it. It does a lousy job of printing my B&W images, so why should I think that the color prints are any better. Sure, I could buy a better (and more expensive), printer, but do I really want to put my money there? What if there was another way?

Autumn Leaves, Union City, Georgia.
Another one I'd love to print.

Only recently have I become acquainted with the RA-4 process of making color prints from color negatives, and this is chiefly due to one person:  Andrew Bartram. Andrew has been a photography friend for quite some time, and I always enjoy reading about his photographic adventures in his town of Warboys in the south of England, which he posts on Facebook. Recently, he has endeavored to start up a community darkroom in his town. I know how thankful I am for my community darkroom in Chattanooga, Safelight District, so I followed with interest. Soon, Andrew was offering workshops through his community darkroom, and one of those caught my eye. It was about making color prints. He himself took the workshop, and now he posts beautiful examples of color photography, photography completely devoid of any digital process. I was intrigued.

Garden Girl and her Dog, Gibbs Gardens near Ball Ground, Georgia.
Surely I can make a better print of this than my scanner did.

I say "intrigued," but I was also very skeptical. Why? I have a major handicap when it come to color photography. I am quite colorblind. No, that does no mean that I cannot see color. Rather, it means that my  color vision is not accurate. My particular colorblindness involves red and green, and this spirals out to other colors as well. I simply don't see color the way most people do or the way my wife, Debbie, does. Although I have lived with this all my, I am reminded of it almost everyday. "Oh, look at the pretty cardinals in the grass. They are RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!" And they are, as are the red azaleas or the pink dogwoods, or anything purple, or . . . the list goes on. 

So, I must be certifiably insane to think that I can perform the necessary color evaluations and corrections when making color darkroom prints. Perhaps this is a really bad idea. But hey! I'm retired. I've got some time. Why not look into it and do some research. It's not rocket science, is it?

Is it?

Jobo 2840 Print Drum. I took it home, cleaned
it up, and now it's ready for use.

And so, since I actually love do do informal research, I have been combing the internet for all I can learn about the RA-4 process. Along the way, I began compiling a list of things I would need, like RA-4 paper, RA-4 chemistry, a print processing drum, an enlarger with a color hear, and color print viewing filters. And just like a sign that I should continue this pursuit further, I found a print drum at my community darkroom large enough to hold 12x16 paper. Check! Oh, and Safelight District has an enlarger with a color head. Check! So far, so good. That leaves the color print viewing filters. These filters are used to evaluate color casts in your prints and give some guidance on correction. Kodak made some, and they are expensive, about $100 on eBay. However, Kodak also included viewing filters in their Kodak Color Darkroom Dataguide, which can be found on eBay for much less. A possible alternate? 

Ok, so acquiring all this and learning the process does not mean I will be able to get the colors right and make decent prints. I know this. However, I do know someone with perfect color vision, and this person happens to be my wife. I know she will be glad to help. And I going to need help.

Lots of it.

To conclude, I definitely am at the thinking stage. I am doing my research and looking around for equipment. I haven't gone as far to make any purchases, yet, but maybe that will come soon. 

We'll see.

Stay tuned . . .