I discovered that I could do whatever I wanted with a negative in a darkroom and an enlarger.
Don't get between me and a really good picture in the darkroom, because then I want to go straight to the darkroom and develop it. But once that's done, I'm fine.
I felt like an undeveloped photograph that he was printing, my image rising to the surface under his gaze.
The series of photographic operations, developing, washing, final drying, takes about quarter of an hour.
I have a good friend who's a very good printer. And he does a certain amount of printing for me. I do all the developing. If somebody's going to goof my film, I'd better do it. I don't want to get that mad at anybody else.
The thing that was most interesting to me was getting my first prints back from the printer and realizing photography doesn't end with the click of a button, it starts there. Printing is so exciting.
Darkroom work had, after all, never interested me except as a means to an end; the place I wanted to be was outside in the light.
Since the recording process is instantaneous, and the nature of the image such that it cannot survive corrective handwork, it is obvious that the finished print must be created in full before the film is exposed.
