Some Oldfashioned Darkroom Magic

I am indebted to the kindly Chinese staff photographers of the old South China Morning Post and the China Mail, like old Mr Chiu, the Chief Photographer, who taught me how to develop my own black and white negatives.

All the news photographers at that time used Kodak Tri-X pan film. It was 400 ASA and relatively fine grained, which meant it could handle most any light conditions. In bright sunlight, you'd probably set f22 and 1/250th  of a second on the camera's controls - if the sun was shining from behind you.

I mainly used 35mm cameras. But most newspaper photographers back then used Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex cameras (TLRs). These took 120 roll film, and gave 12 negatives 6x6 cm (or 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches).

The first camera I used was a 1960s Canon rangefinder camera. It had belonged to my father and could be used either automatically (except for focussing) or manually - like for flash pictures.

I learned how to develop the film in Kodak D-76 developer, wash and dry it, cut it into strips of 6 and slip the negs under a sheet of thick glass to make a contact sheet... (proof sheet) for the sub editors to select from. And I learned how to make enlargements in the darkroom, placing my fingers under the enlarger lens to hold-back or emphasise different parts of the picture. This was called dodging and burning-in.

In the air-conditioned temperature of the dark rooms, it took about 6 to 8 minutes to develop the negatives. You had to agitate the film gently, by twirling the knob on top of a plastic film tank or else lifting and lowering the reels up and down in the developer solution. We used to call it souping the films.

Then you lifted the roll of film out of the developing tank and placed it into a stop bath (acetic acid), which neutralised any developing chemicals still on the film surface.

At this stage you could turn on a very dim green safelight and try and see if there was an image. Even with the eyes of a young 20 year old, this was very difficult. Most times we never bothered looking at all; we could see so little. We had to trust that our films were exposed correctly. If they were over-exposed, a picture of some kind could be produced nine times out of ten. But if the negatives had been under-exposed, then you had less than one chance out of ten - since there was damn-all image on the film to try and enhance.

Washing the films was all too brief. A minute or so was all we would spare before making proofs and rushing the photos to the editors. But for archival permanence, the films and prints needed more than half an hour's thorough wash in running-water. We had special cascading sinks and washing tanks in the old SCMP dark room for just that purpose. This was back in 1966.