developing nd your health

[creep]

just had a long, long day.
i spent 6 hours in the darkrooom today, rushing to get my end of year project together. there was no tongs or anything, so my hands were covered in chemicals from moving from developer, to stop, then to fix.
Only washed my hands once in every two/three goes. Just dried them on my shirt. I was putting in a new pic every few minutes, so i didn't see the point.
I noticed two odd things;
First, the developer started reeking of ammonia. like really bad. (you know that smell you get from rabbit hutches and stuff, rank)
The stop had to be changed a few times, turned purple in a half an hour.
And the fix kept getting spent. I guess the last two are just down to the amount of prints going through (there were five of us in there at a time), but the smell of the developer...have any of you ever found that before?

The second thing, about half an hour after i left, i got this real bad headache, right over my left eye. It persisted for a whole 6 hours, i winced every time the bus home hit a bump. When i got home i had gone really pale, it was so weird. Just had a shower 'cos my skin was sweating ID11 developer. I literally smelt of the stuff, like i was sweating it out.

Have any of you ever heard of anything like this before?
(I guess it was just the combination of fumes, and skin contact, some kind of mild poisoning.)

 

[rgbivens]

Does your darkroom not have exaust fans???

I would think that if they were at a College or school they would be manditory for heath reasons. Also, you should wash your hands in at least water if nothing else everytime you take your hands out of the chemicals. No telling how many times you touch your face and other areas of skin and you don't even think about it. That leaves chemical on you and you don't know its there so you don't wash it off. Also if you have chemicals on your hands and you touch your paper then you'll get spots and other oddities on your prints which isn't good

As far as the chemicals getting spent so quickly try to make sure and you drip as much chemical off as possible before going from one chemical to the next. Hold it above the tray for 5-10 seconds and let it drip off really good. Seeing your using indicator stop bath thats probably the harsh smell thats giving you the headache. Its the most potent chemical of the three with developer coming in second and then fixer. Espically in its consentrated state.

If your darkroom doesn't have a vent I would walk outside every 10-15 mins and get some fresh air...

-Grant

 

[Piano Player]

just had a long, long day.
i spent 6 hours in the darkrooom today, rushing to get my end of year project together. there was no tongs or anything, so my hands were covered in chemicals from moving from developer, to stop, then to fix.
Only washed my hands once in every two/three goes. Just dried them on my shirt. I was putting in a new pic every few minutes, so i didn't see the point.
I noticed two odd things;
First, the developer started reeking of ammonia. like really bad. (you know that smell you get from rabbit hutches and stuff, rank)
The stop had to be changed a few times, turned purple in a half an hour.
And the fix kept getting spent. I guess the last two are just down to the amount of prints going through (there were five of us in there at a time), but the smell of the developer...have any of you ever found that before?

The second thing, about half an hour after i left, i got this real bad headache, right over my left eye. It persisted for a whole 6 hours, i winced every time the bus home hit a bump. When i got home i had gone really pale, it was so weird. Just had a shower 'cos my skin was sweating ID11 developer. I literally smelt of the stuff, like i was sweating it out.

Have any of you ever heard of anything like this before?
(I guess it was just the combination of fumes, and skin contact, some kind of mild poisoning.)

When developer is mixed with fixer, it creates ammonia. At a minimum, when you move from one print to the other wash your hands, or a little fixer from the previous print will get in the developer on the next print. Ammonia is a toxic substance, and you should limit your exposure. (Your nose was trying to tell you something)

See http://www.scphoto.com/html/chemicals.html

 

[mamabear4]

Please be careful with those chemicals. I have an elderly friend who did a lot of dark room processing in his younger days and that was before latex gloves. He just told me and my husband this past week that he's had swollen lymph nodes throughout his entire body for years and the doctors tell him it was caused by the processing chemicals that he used to be in contact with all the time. He's having to keep an eye on them for fear that they'll develope into cancer. So please don't handle them without gloves and keep the circulation up so you won't have to breath the fumes in.

 

[creep]

well thats a whole shed load of stuff they never told us right there piano player. thanks for the link.
yeah, the counter top ould always be sodden from careless handling of drippy prints (not from me, btw, from other people).
The developer must have been more sensitive than i thought f my hands contaminated it. Unless somebody put a print from the fix back to the developer. It's happened before.

the thing is, the lecturer never bothered to really explain the really basic stuff that should've been drilled into us before we were let anywhere near the chemicals.
ah well, live and learn.

Yeah, photographers always used to die young, because cyanide was a component in one of the chemicals.