Darkroom printers tend to be a solitary bunch. This project is a chance for us to do something fun and share our processes and techniques. One of the benefits of doing this exchange was the time limit, giving each printer a week from when they receive the negative means there is little time to overt think the process and most printers got their prints done in a day. If you print you know how a darkroom session can be drawn out, disastrous, frustrating and ultimately rewarding.

Knowing we had to get something printed in order to handover the negative took away some of the control and the relaxed nature of the group really helped. This is not a competition to see who can print the best, it is a project where fellow darkroom printers can compare techniques and processes based around a single negative which allows for direct comparison.

If you are interested in joining us on our next exchange contact Aoife or Brendan, we’d love to see more darkroom printers join us. 

• Respect other printers’ time by 
• Don’t take it too seriously
• Arrange handover to the next printer, either in person or by post.
• Take care of the negative, it belongs to one of the other printers.