a survey of London’s remaining professional darkrooms (2006-2009)
Photofusion is delighted to present for the first time Richard Nicholson’s series Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light.
This project, begun in 2006 and shot on large format film, documents London’s remaining professional darkrooms. For decades these workspaces were the engine rooms of the British photographic scene, turning out iconic images for galleries, billboards and glossy magazines. Yet now they languish, struggling to survive in the new world of digital photography.
Nicholson’s carefully composed images shed light on private workspaces that were previously obscured by darkness. Enlargers stand proudly, like spiritual relics from another age, in chaotic rooms marked with the patina of time – a world apart from the contemporary photographer’s shiny computer workstation.
By turning his lens on the printing process itself, Nicholson invites us to reflect on the nature of photography and the accelerating pace of technological change.
The series includes the darkrooms of master printers Roy Snell, Michael Dyer, Debbie Sears, Adrian Ensor, Brian Dowling, Mike Spry, Robin Bell and many others.
www.richardnicholson.com/darkroom
www.photofusion.org
