Darkroom stills (in progress...)
The Story of Making, Work Registrations in the Darkroom
Darkroom Stills is a series of analogue photographs made during the process of working in the darkroom. Throughout the work, an analogue registration camera is positioned somewhere in the space, functioning as a silent observer of the ongoing process.
For these registrations I work with a Cambo 4×5 large-format camera or a Mamiya C330 Professional 6×6 camera. The choice of these cameras is deliberate. Both require a physical, attentive and relatively slow way of working, in contrast to the immediacy of digital registration. The camera becomes part of the rhythm of the darkroom rather than an external recording device.
Because of the very limited available light, a long exposure is almost always necessary. The photograph therefore does not simply capture an instant, but accumulates time. During the exposure, movement, changing light, gestures and interventions can leave traces on the negative. A single image can consequently contain a duration of the working process rather than one isolated moment.
The camera is triggered intermittently whenever something calls for registration: an arrangement of materials, the position of a negative or mask, the light of the enlarger, traces of chemistry, a developing image, tools in use, or an unexpected detail. These photographs are not predetermined documentation. They are fragments that emerge from the ongoing process of making.
The registration camera itself becomes part of the work. While one image is being constructed, another image records the circumstances in which it is being made. There is a continuous movement between making and observing, action and registration, image and process.
The darkroom becomes both workplace and subject. Enlarger light, photographic paper, negatives, masks, plant material, chemicals, tools, residues and unfinished images enter the frame. Through the extended exposure, these elements can overlap and accumulate, allowing the photograph to become a record of both space and time.
The resulting photographs form a visual archive of the making process. They are not merely documentation of finished works, but a parallel body of work in which the conditions, actions and transformations of the darkroom become the subject.
The camera watches while the work is being made. The long exposure allows time itself to enter the photograph.
