Ruth Kaplan G44: B&W Darkroom Basics – Processing and Printing

Register for this Gallery 44 workshop here.

$225 / $200 (G44 members)

Learn skills necessary for film processing and printing in a traditional wet black and white darkroom with instructor Ruth Kaplan. This workshop will guide participants from the fundamentals of processing film to black and white printing—including darkroom chemistry setup and safety, 35mm film processing, enlarger use, test prints, contact sheets through more advanced printing techniques such as dodging and burning and the use of filters to enhance your images and create exhibition quality prints.

This workshop is a great introduction or refresher course for anyone who hasn’t been in the darkroom for a while. Participants should bring unprocessed 35mm black and white negatives (2 rolls maximum)—all other materials provided.

Ruth Kaplan (b. 1955, Montréal, Canada) is a documentary-based photographer whose work integrates still photographs and video and explores a variety of themes such as the social behaviour of bathers in communal hot springs, congregants participating in rituals of spirituality, and, most recently, refugees living in shelters along the Canada-US border as they await decisions on their pending status. Work from Kaplan’s series Some Kind of Divine (2000–10) and Bathers (1991–2002) can be found in numerous private and corporate collections in Toronto, as well as across Canada, and in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University; the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Kaplan has exhibited internationally and is represented by Stephen Bulger Gallery. Her editorial work can be found in major Canadian and international publications, she has received numerous grants and awards and is currently an instructor at OCAD University, Toronto Metropolitan University, and University of Toronto Scarborough.