Press photographer Andy Zakeli was nostalgic for his early training in black and white film, when he imagined a new way to share his passion with the next generation. After years of collecting equipment and sourcing a sustainable van, he has created a mobile dark room.
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00:00It's real photography in my opinion, it's traditional and it's hands on and more importantly
00:12it's probably the fun part of photography, I don't think people have forgotten that with
00:16the advent of all this fandangle digital.
00:19Film just takes you back to the roots of photography and just spending time in a place like a dark
00:25room just is this real creative, ethereal experience at times and it's a really good
00:30time to escape and spend time away from the things that are probably bothering you so
00:36you can concentrate on what you're doing in front of you and have that tactile experience
00:40and yeah just create.
00:45It takes a lot of stupidity to create a mobile dark room because I don't think this scale
00:49has been done before but yeah it's a confined space, we've got 8 enlargers in here so 8
00:54people can work at once and it has to run as a production line because there's not too
00:58much room to move but it's comfortable enough.
01:03I love the fact that it makes you stop and think and have to have some sense of what
01:11you're doing, there's no racing through producing images, it's a very slow mindful process.
01:20I think there's a bit of joy in it, the line of chemicals that the images go through is
01:29a good place to stand when someone puts their shot in the developer, that they're in control
01:36of that from beginning to end is really a delight, it's a bit of magic.
01:43You definitely have to concentrate more on taking the photographs and spending more time
01:48and calculating what you need to do because you don't have that luxury of viewing your
01:52image and deleting it, spending more time slowing down and then when you see that final
01:58result and know that you've done that all by yourself is a real buzz.