'Every time I find a paper or film I like, they discontinue it' Paul StrandThe photographer and printer Mike Crawford (no relation) was given more than twenty boxes of out of date photographic paper by one of his clients who was clearing the darkroom of his uncle who had died several years earlier. The papers were between 20 and 40 years old and initial testing showed that while several of the boxes were unusable, with careful processing using modified development techniques some were capable of producing an image, albeit with some fogging or discolouration of the paper base. There was so much material that he decided to offer some of it to several colleagues around the country who were still practicing darkroom workers. The response was positive and having subsequently been contacted by several other interested photographers he initiated a collaborative project to produce a book of diverse images, the only criterion in common for selection being that they had been created with one of these papers.
The end result is 'Obsolete and Discontinued' published by Brovira Press in 2018 and containing more than eighty plates, contributed by sixty individual darkroom workers from around the world. The selection consists of a wide range of abstract and figurative images using various historical and contemporary darkroom techniques including 'straight' lens based silver gelatin prints, lith prints, photograms, chemigrams, lumen prints, mordencage (emulsion lifts) and images made with pinhole cameras or from wet plate collodion and paper negatives. In spite of the diversity of the authors, subject matter and techniques, by concentrating on the materials used the final selection has produced a surprisingly cohesive feel to this set of highly original images, demonstrating the enthusiasm of the contributors for working with the richness of the quality obtainable from these aged papers.One of the contributors has commented that, 'when you work in the darkroom, you feel you are working with science and with nature; I feel a greater sense of ownership when I work with analogue processes' (Norris 2018), a feeling which I believe most of us who have experienced this environment would share. Although the colour papers and chemistry I have been using for my most recent work are not (as yet) obsolete, in my initial experiments in making monochrome photograms I used out of date silver gelatin papers, passed on to me by a colleague who had dismantled his darkroom, having converted to a digital workflow. I can closely relate to the aesthetic gratification derived from working with analogue materials but while the reasons for this are difficult to determine, the diversity and quality of the images this book are testament to my belief that this amounts to much more than simple nostalgia.While the published photobook was reproduced digitally (to a very high standard), the original prints were used in a touring exhibition, shown in Barcelona and Cologne in 2016 and London in 2018.Strand, Paul: as quoted in preface to 'Obsolete and Discontinued', Ed. Crawford, M., Brovira Press, London 2018.Norris, Yaz: collaborator's quote in 'Obsolete and Discontinued', Ed. Crawford, M., Brovira Press, London, p13-14, 2018.See also www.obsolete-discontinued.com