A Lack of Colour

A Lack of Colour is the next iteration of my silver gelatin paper material study. I have been working on this project since 2020, utilizing photographic materials that date back to the 1880s. For years, I have collected these black-and-white developing-out papers from around the world, sourcing them from the many defunct manufacturers of a bygone era. 

Without the use of a camera, film, or an enlarger, these papers are developed, stopped, and fixed under the familiar glow of the darkroom safelight. The results are not images of something else in the conventional sense. Instead, they are objects created using the fundamental, traditional recipe of light, time, and chemistry. These surfaces have been sculpted by decades of previous mishandling, atmospheric oxidation, and chemical breakdown. 

Rather than functioning as windows to another world or recording a fleeting moment, these pieces look inward. They make the invisible mechanics of photography entirely visible. By stripping away representation, the work explores the raw physical properties of the medium itself. The paper does not depict an image; the paper is the image. Through this approach, the materials are freed from the duty of documentation, allowing the viewer to engage directly with the pure, concrete reality of silver, gelatin, and time.