Art and the magic of film

Darkroom Kitchen is our very own traditional photography space, available for tuition and hire.

Located in the Tyne Valley, this unique Darkroom offers standard tuition on a wide variety of silver and alternative based processes.

We have an extensive selection of equipment to suit your needs. We primarily employ a DeVere 504 equipped with a 2nd generation Ilford 500 Multigrade light head with a selection of Rodenstock, Schneider and Nikon optics for our silver printing tutorials and hire. The DeVere 504 is capable of enlarging negatives up to 5"x4". It is also equipped with a custom glass negative carrier so it can accept 6x9 and 48mm panoramic negatives.

Additionally, we also utilise a Durst M605 enlarger which is used for our mobile operations. It is our main colour enlarger, possessing a colour head which has been modified to run a cooler, LED based light source without sacrificing the ability to filtrate colours, particular in the yellow channel. The Durst M605 is teamed with a highly sought-after S2000 timer controller which, like the controller for the Multigrade head on the DeVere, makes tasks such as splitgrade printing significantly easier.

This enlarger is capable of printing 35mm and 6x6 negatives in the original Durst negative carriers.

Please note: this enlarger, unlike the M805 for example, is NOT equipped with a neutral density controller.

Darkroom Kitchen has specially designed worksurfaces suited for chemical work. Though being compact, it is nonetheless a fully fitted photographic darkroom space that is especially suited to demonstrate what is possible in the world of silver photography in a domestic context.

We operate with Patterson and Jobo processing equipment, possessing two deep tanks (one shown just to the right) that can process x5 35 films or x3 120 films in one batch.

We use Ilford and Tetenal photochemisty and can custom order specific chemistry upon request. If Darkroom Kitchen is hired, you are more than welcome to bring your own chemisty but please note that, due to the very distinctive character of the darkroom, we DO NOT allow Pyro based or high Metol content developers under ANY circumstances. Toning is restricted to our external space. Please also note that, due to space constraints, Darkroom Kitchen is optimised for resin papers as we cannot accomodate the neccessary equipment to ensure fibre paper flatness.

PRICES

FURTHER INFORMATION

Please refer to our tuition page for details on our courses and please also refer to our mobile services page which details our public facing workshops.

Visits are warmly welcomed - please contact us to arrange a time!

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