Members, friends and guests assembled for our latest LightWorks soirée on April 24th and were treated to some truly exceptional work.
Despite being one of our more recent members, John Kennedy has already racked up an impressive number of sessions, that would be the envy of others who have been with us for years! He kicked off proceedings with some of the alternative printing techniques he’s been exploring. John recently did a workshop with Platinum Printing expert Roberto Aguilar and brought along a selection of exquisite prints that he produced there. Comparing them with some conventional silver gelatin print version he brought along, it was fascinating to see how this process alters the tonal qualities of the image. John described the intricacies and precision required to achieve the perfect end result, and how under the expert guidance of Roberto, this had not been the intimidating experience he had anticipated. He also shared some Photogravure images that he had produced at another workshop, some of which he also had platinum and silver gelatin versions of. Seeing how the texture of the paper and inking of plates subtly changes the look and feel of these prints was a a real eye opener.
If you are interested in more information about or Platinum Printing workshops with Roberto Aguilar, follow this link.
Next up was darkroom stalwart Jesse Leary, who has been exploring multiple image composite printing techniques. Combining negatives shot at different times and in different locations to create fantastical prints of places as far apart as Venice and the Grand Canyon, Jesse is making images that are both photographically representational and at the same otherworldly. He explained how he started by using a single enlarger and painstakingly lining up and exposing his negatives, before realising he could take advantage of our multi-enlarger set-up to make the task a little more straightforward. Having started by looking through his extensive archive to find negatives that would go together, he now finds himself specifically looking for elements to shoot that can be combined. We all look forward to seeing what his creative imagination will produce as he hones this technique.
Chris Mann first came to darkroom over four years ago to do our Introduction to Darkroom workshop. He then became a member for a year before setting up his own darkroom. It was great to welcome Chris back to show work produced during visits to Wadi Rum in Jordan and Azerbaijan. He explained that his striking images are often the result of fortuitous happenstance or extreme patience and their characteristic aesthetic is achieved by a love of high-contrast printing and diligent darkroom technique. Chris has already been successful in getting his work exhibited in a number of prestigious group show in Europe and the United States, as well as having a couple of solo shows in the UK. He explained how he enjoys seeing that when sequencing prints on gallery walls interesting relationships develop between adjacent images.
You can see more of Chris’s stunning work here
Stefanie Hatt has been a darkroom member almost from our inception and it has been fantastic to see the progress in her photography. Following on from a previous LightWorks where she only showed a couple of small prints, Stefanie is currently building a portfolio of 5 x 3 inch prints having discovered that big isn’t always best. In addition to the obvious cost benefits, she has noticed that people have a completely different relationship to her images, as they are forced to engage much more closely with the subject matter. Stefanie explained that there have also been unexpected challenges when it comes to the finessing of prints with dodging and burning in the darkroom, as exposure times can be very short and the areas to address very small!
More of Stefanie’s work can be seen here
Last, but definitely far from least, was Xinyue Tao, who has been doing a sterling job helping darkroom with our social media marketing. A recent graduate from the Royal College of Art, Xinyue presented examples of her on-going lumen project work, incorporating organic material from her daily life to create a visual diary. The temporal nature of the lumen prints challenges the notion that records and memory are fixed. The resulting images are both figurative or reference the source materials that Xinyue uses to to react with photographic paper. Alongside these were some produced on the day, where she had interacted with prints in the course of exposing the paper to her negatives, again creating a tension between the already fixed image produced by the negative and objects placed on and removed from the paper while the image was being exposed.
Read more about Xinyue’s approach to her work and see more examples here.
We try and organise one of our LightWorks soirées quarterly. It is primarily an opportunity for darkroom members to share their work and receive feedback, but we also welcome no members to bring work or simply contribute to the lively debate. Watch this space for future dates.