Darkroom Developer

I don't mind the darkroom--

It's actually my favorite part of the process. The dark is soothing and I love trying new techniques to really bring out the details in photographs.

Miss Marigold can't stand it. I don't think she knows how to... be still. If she's not hunting down a lead, she's not happy.

— ~A photographer from Lazuli

With the rise of Photography at the turn of the 20th century came the frantic need for darkrooms. The earliest photographic films were extremely sensitive to light, and trying to turn the negative into a finished photo without absolute darkness created a blurry white mess. Darkrooms were specialty-built laboratories in which photos could be developed. And the Developers were the men and women who made them sing-- in black and white, and in color.

Basic Facts

Average Salary: 3,000 Qer, per year

Number of current professionals: 25 across the Eastern Seaboard.

Tools of the Trade: Darkroom, enlarger, various chemical baths, safety equipment.

Prominent names in the field: Marcon Lumier

Work day: Standard labs work 8-5. Newspapers may have round-the clock labs.

The Bright Minds in the Darkrooms

In most amateur Darkrooms, the developer is also the photographer. They are typically working with more limited equipment and space, and the photos aren't much to speak of. Business, governments and other large entities will invest in a more boutique darkroom with an in-house developer. This allows their photographers more on site taking photos while someone handles the grunt-work of developing the photos. The Darkroom developer, solo, can develop dozens of photographs in a single day. With an assistant and pre-selected photographs and exposures can take this up to the hundreds.

There are also Darkrooms available for commercial use; clients will bring in their own rolls of film to be developed in a professional dark-room. There is usually a meeting with the developer to talk through the process and decide the best size of the photograph, the exposure, and the total quantity of desired prints. They will usually have the finished product available anywhere from three days, to a week depending on the quantity of videos.

The Photographer's Guild

While the photographer's guild was established in 1880 as a way for amateur and professional photographers to share information and learn about new advancements in technology, there was some debate as to whether Darkroom Developers should be included as 'masters of the craft.' People in favor pointed out the massive overlap in photography and development, while the few proponents held the position that there was an 'art' to photography that mere 'developers' could not understand. It wasn't until 1907 when famed Developer Marcon Lumier held a 3 day demonstration of the craft of development and secured a place in the guild for darkroom staff.

There is an annual conference held in Lazuli every year for the Guild. Producers of equipment and experts in the field talk, notable achievements are honored, and everyone gets to get together and have a good chat about how annoying the demands of the populace are.