when i started at ithaca college in 1999, we had two HUGE darkrooms with about 50 enlargers each, plus a hallway with 8 to 10 color enlarger rooms on the other side of the whole darkroom "compound." in 2004, a year after i graduated, i went back to hang out with some of the repair men and facilities guys who worked in the basement fixing everything in the darkroom, and they gave me a tour of the re-done rooms. they now sit full of apple computers with digital negative scanners and massive printers. no trays of chemicals, no amber safe lights, no constant, soothing running water. just flourescent lights, iPods, and computer screens. it kills me.

but even i did it, tore up my darkroom, sold it on craigslist, and bought a digital scanner and downloaded adobe photoshop. wegmans, our local gi-normous grocery store, doesn't even develop film or make prints anymore.

i spent years down in that darkroom, eating dinner out of a vending machine, listening to obnoxious punk and metal, making out with my college girlfriend, meeting all kinds of people i never would have met and had to talk to otherwise. and that wonderful dektol smell and dried white fixer stains.

sigh.....

__________________
1985 300D - 1984 Euro 280E AMG Clone (SOLD) - 1978 280CE (SOLD) - 1983 300D (SOLD) - 1981 300D (SOLD)