Blackpool Community Darkroom open day
Join us for an open day and “taster” of the new Blackpool Community Darkroom.
25th November 11-2pm
Drop in to meet the practitioners and have a look at analogue photography demonstrations including:
- Loading up your film for development
- Exposing a negative and developing a print
- Lumen Print process
- Pin Hole Photography
Have a chat about forthcoming workshops and how you can begin to use the Blackpool Community Darkroom based at Aunty Social, 28 Topping Street, Blackpool, FY1 3AQ.
Enjoy a brew and a biscuit with the darkroom practitioners: Henry Iddon, Helen Kay, Nicola Dixon, Donna Hannigan, and Claire Griffiths.
Important access info
Please note that the darkroom is upstairs. It’s a single flight of 14 steps then you go around the corner and there are two small steps. Once you’re upstairs there’s a loo. You shouldn’t need to come downstairs for anything until the end of the event.
We’re in the process of having a lift installed so the space will be accessible by February 2024.
Blackpool Community Darkroom is supported by Historic England (Know Your Neighbourhood) and sponsored by Zone Imaging.
Howard Patrick
HOWARD PATRICK
07340 263717
I began black and white printing at Northern Press Agency, 33, Coronation Street at 16 years old. Despite the rather grand business name, it was in fact a ‘smudge’ darkroom. The street photographers were so named because their snaps were mostly little better than smudges. I remember one of them, Joe Riley polishing his lens with his tie after being on the prom in salty air. “What shall I give it kid, eff eights”? Yes Joe, a 60th at F8 should do it today. He was using Plus X. I worked there for a few years then set up my own darkroom in Victoria Street above Florian’s barber shop. Took all Peter Vaughan’s customers (Northern Press). Did a year in business and then at twenty one took to the road across France and briefly, Spain for eight months.
I came back and got a job at Camera Press in London, just off Bloomsbury Square. Peter Miles was Darkroom Chief. He said, “Not interested in your CV. Let’s see if you can print. He took me to the darkroom, a big space with white overcalled, old Fleet Street hands all working away at the enlargers and the big sink of dev. All watching me. No pressure. Peter gave me a quarter plate neg of Winston Churchill, shot by Josuf Karsh of Ottawa. “Do me 250 eight sixes off this”. I made three or four test prints and then knocked off 250 counting in my head, no timers in those days. Fed them into the dev in batches of twenty like riffling a pack of cards.
All this was after Blackpool ‘smudge’ darkooms. Poky, unventilated dumps. And I got the job. All of a sudden earning more than my dad and printing the syndication shots for David Bailey, Brian Duffy, Terry Donovan, Lord Lichfield, and Lord Snowdon. It was the sixties, Cecil Beaton, Harri Peccinotti, Paul Almasy et al. I can hardly believe it now! In fact I might have forgotten how to print, it’s so long ago. But although 81, I am fit and compos mentis and if I can be of some help let me know.