Photo Paper Developing

-Strawbs-

Hi there,

I'm not a photographer of any sort but I was planning on fiddling around with a pinhole camera as part of a project. I was going to use photo paper as opposed to film as I gather it's more suitable. I'm just wondering is there anywhere I could get this paper developed as setting up a darkroom would be kind of overkill/expensive for a one-time experiment.

Thanks for your help!

Effects

You can hire a darkroom for reasonable rates depending on where you are based but you will need to know how to process the paper yourself. To be honest, you would would probably be better off using film unless you have worked with paper before. I think there is a positive paper available now that Daire Quinlan has used. I'm sure he'll post here as he's used paper negs a good bit.

thefizz

If you did decide to use a darkroom, the only positive paper available is fibre based so this may be too difficult for you to use if you're not used to darkroom printing. An easier way but just a bit longer would be to use Resin Coated paper to make a paper negative and then contact print it to a paper positive.

But as suggested using film will probably be simplest if you don't want to use a darkroom.

DaireQuinlan

I've never used that positive paper, though I'd love to. V. expensive, and only available in fibre, I think they had problems producing it in RC for some reason. More the expense that puts me off, it's not much cheaper than buying 8x10 sheet film. One of these days I'll give it a go.

Not too hard to pull it off with normal paper though, get the cheapest you can find with a couple of 8x10 trays and find someplace as dark as possible to develop it. Scan it and invert or (slightly more difficult) find some way of doing contact prints with the paper negs.

I can actually dev paper now in daylight, I have a big paterson tube that I can do 1 sheet at a time in, and a changing bag that I can use to transfer the paper from the holders to the tube. Probably too much to get though if you're just goofing around.

You'll also need paper dev & fix at the least, but they're not terrible expensive.

This was a paper neg (scanned & inverted) :


This was a colour paper neg (RA4):

-Strawbs-

Thanks for all the suggestions, much appreciated.

Think I'll grab some developer and fix and invert them as you suggested, Daire.

The result will probably be an abomination upon photography but trial and error and all that!

antorra

Don't know where you're based but you'll be able to develop your own pinhole photographs at the Hunt Museum in Limerick on April 28. I read they're hosting a workshop for this year's Pinhole Photography Day.
Here's the link:
http://www.pinholeday.org/events/index.php?event=2564
Ciao