The place where art and creation merged
Unlike today, in the time of Baldomero Alejos, photography was a complex chemical process that required a lot of time, skill and, above all, technique. It required having a laboratory in total darkness, special chemicals, analog cameras and films. Before, taking photographs consisted of recording the image on a negative, which then went through two phases. I
The first phase, Baldomero Alejos developed the negatives by placing them in buckets of chemicals and shaking them gently. He controlled the time very careful by counting the seconds mentally, to assure a correct revealed (Nowdays a laboratory stopwatch is used). The negative sizes that he used the most were 20×25 cm, 15x 20, 9x 12 cm, which today are no longer used because cameras of this format do not exist anymore.
In the second phase, he proceeded to print the photos. To do this, he used a “solar enlarger”, designed and manufactured by him, based on an old camera but in inverted position. (See model). Then, the paper with the image was developed in buckets containing developer and fixer, using an amber (yellow) light to verify the process.
Already in 1960 he acquired a DURTZ enlarger, 6×9 cm format, with which he printed more easily and quickly. However, for larger negatives, he continued to use the traditional enlarger.