Decades ago, I embarked on a journey with my trusty SLR camera in hand. Little did I know that the world would rapidly evolve into an age where digital 1’s and 0’s would reign supreme. As life often demands compromise, I made the decision to digitize my work and create a connective space for my photographs.
The darkroom was once my sanctuary, where I honed my skills in processing and printing. It was a place of solitude, bathed in the dimmed red light that fueled my endless trials and errors. I even had a stint in the “Hollywood days,” that was, spending time in Los Angeles as a darkroom mouse, working in various photo labs printing for some well known photographers, the hard way.
As technology advanced, I transitioned into the role of a scanning manager, utilizing software like Photoshop to in the photo-illustration machinery, perpetuate what to me were, surreal imageries. However, my soul still is tied to the days of the darkroom. Since relocating to France in 2010, I have been unable to recreate the ultimate darkroom revival that I have been meaning to.
Yet, tucked away in the basement of this 300-year-old house, lie the remnants of the old beasts that I transported all the way from the US. In this cave (how the French call their basements), I hope that one day I will be able to resurrect this darkroom dragon, and once again disappear into my dungeon to emerge with handmade photographs.
Photography is a communicative art form, meant to be shared. While the digital age has revolutionized the way we capture and showcase our work, there is something irreplaceable about the tangible nature of film and the meticulous process of developing each image. Something is more true about that to me to what I feel is life. A whole series of ever evolving
