Michel Campeau | Darkrooms

Since 2003, Canadian photographer Michel Campeau travels the world to photograph darkrooms. These chambers of analog photography, where icons of picture making were crafted through the use of chemicals on silver gelatin paper, today seem like allusions to a time long gone. Martin Parr, who published the work in his editorial series at Nazraeli Press, wrote about it: “Most photographers have spent hours and days in that peculiar environment known as the darkroom. Here, prints are magically created using chemicals and light. Campeau’s photographs show the passing of an era. As digital production takes hold to a greater and greater extent, we will look back at these images and mourn the darkroom’s passing.”

Anna Gripp wrote about the work in PHOTONEWS (10/10): “Michel Campeau looks at the small world of a stuffy lab as if it was a universe, holding every possibily. His images of darkrooms are in fact documentary, but in their interpretation they are to be regarded as autonomous works of art. (…) Some of the images are evocative of a painting by an old master, others succeed to ascent the most vernacular object to a visual event.”

MICHEL CAMPEAU, born 1946, lives and works in Montreal, Canada. His work has been exhibited and published internationally, his series DARKROOMS for instamce at the New York Photography Festival and the Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles.

Seit 2003 reist der kanadische Fotograf Michel Campeau um die Welt, um Dunkelkammern zu fotografieren. Diese Handwerkskammern der analogen Fotografie, in denen mit Hilfe von Chemie und silberhaltigem Papier Ikonen der Bildgeschichte geschaffen wurden, erscheinen heute wie Versatzstücke einer vergangenen Zeit. Martin Parr, der die Serie in seiner Editionsreihe bei Nazraeli Press veröffentlichte, schrieb über die Arbeit: „Most photographers have spent hours and days in that peculiar environment known as the darkroom. Here, prints are magically created using chemicals and light. Campeau’s photographs show the passing of an era. As digital production takes hold to a greater and greater extent, we will look back at these images and mourn the darkroom’s passing.”

Anna Gripp schrieb in PHOTONEWS (Nr. 10/10): „Michel Campeau betrachtet die kleine Welt des miefigen Labors wie ein Universum, in dem alles möglich ist. Seine Laboransichten sind im faktischen Sinne dokumentarisch, doch in dieser Interpretation als selbstständige Werke zu betrachten, (…). Einige der Bilder erinnern an Gemälde bekannter Maler, andere schaffen es, banalste Situationen zu einem visuellen Ereignis wachsen zu lassen.”

MICHEL CAMPEAU, 1946 geboren, lebt und arbeitet in Montreal, Kanada. Seine Arbeit wurde bereits intensiv international ausgestellt und veröffentlicht, die Serie DARKROOMS zuletzt auf dem New York Photography Festival und bei den Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles.