Photographer Documents Diminishing Darkrooms Around the World by Jenna Garrett

Photographers: Michel Campeau

My project, built on an observation of the decline of silver-based photography, took as its central object the darkroom, rapidly deserted because of the phenomenal growth in computer technologies. Both an actor in and a witness of this pivotal period in the history of art and photography, caught between analogue and digital processes, I wished to record the iconic nature of these post-industrial ruins and the remains strewn among them.—Michael Campeau

Since 2003, Canadian photographer Michel Campeau has traveled all over the world to document the last of the photographic darkrooms. Toronto, Havana, Paris, Berlin and Ho Chi Minh City are just some of the cities Campeau has traveled to, seeking out what he feels are historic and dying spaces. As digital technologies rapidly take over analog, Campeau’s book of darkrooms act as both an artifact and a memorial of a disappearing tradition. Photographic Darkroom reveals that no matter where in the world, photographers have gathered in nearly identical spaces for decades, all to witness the magic that happens in the chemistry when the lights are shut off.

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