18 May The Red Blanket
The Ruby Glass windowpane. The sooty red oil lamp. In short, the enchanted lantern of little light that has barely illuminated the photographer's cave since the earliest days. The dim signal that chemical magic was afoot. The safelight. Let me start out by saying safelights aren't. None of them are safe, but their degree of danger depends upon a number of factors. The ones that were fired by kerosene were dangerous as fire hazards and the ones that work with electricity are dangerous because of that. But that is only to the worker - their real danger is when they overspread and fog up sensitive emulsions and photographic coatings. They are not meant to, but eventually they all do. You defeat this by four means: a. Distance - you keep the safelight far enough away from the sensitive material. b. Time - you expose the paper or film for the very smallest amount of time needed. c. Intensity - you keep the light as dim as you can, while still benefiting from some illumination. d. Filtration - there are different filters for different emulsions. This A-P safelight is...