Further Darkroom Training

It’s coming up to a year since I made the decision to expand my arts practice into the darkroom. I am very grateful to Louth Arts Office for supporting me in this journey with a bursary, and to Creative Spark for their vision in setting up a community darkroom.

Along with the process of making photographs on film and developing that film, I also had to learn about making darkroom prints using an enlarger and all the associated water baths. To help me learn all this process I was very fortunate to be able to attend MonoChrome Meath workshops (Peter runs very good practical darkroom workshops and I highly recommend them).

After completing the beginner’s course last November and doing loads of practice I was ready for the intermediate training a couple of weeks ago. It was an intensive, one to one session focused on making Fibre based prints and all the photo chemistry that goes with it. I also learned more specialised techniques with the enlarger like split grade printing and flashing.It really is bit technical to start explaining here and I value your attention, so let’s just say it’s amazing the difference between resin coated (rc) and fibre based (fb) papers.

The knowledge I have gained in making traditional, high quality, archival prints will inform my material explorations of low-toxic photochemistry and potentially non-archival image making.Examples of both approaches will be on display and up for discussion at my new exhibition in November, It Matters.

New Solo Exhibition

All my darkroom adventures so far this year will form the basis of my new solo exhibition, It Matters, in Downtown Hub, Dundalk opening on the 6th November and running until the 2nd December 2025 (more details closer to the time).