My darkroom

   
The darkroom is/was my room. I loved to take my negatives, close the door and just work with my pictures. “It’s just a turn - and freedom!" as Emily Dickinson took her bedroom and locked herself in with a gesture. The darkroom is the precious room-of-one’s-own. The private place, the sanctuary. To rephrase a famous remark of Robert Frost, our private places are those from which, when we seek entry, we are never turned away. My New York darkroom is a room much longer than it is wide, with a wet side and a dry side. The wet side has the sink; the dry side has the enlarger.








When I was in my darkroom with my negatives, the white, light-sensitive paper, ready to print, nobody was allowed, and everybody knew not to open this door, otherwise there would be a scream, a scream like a flashbulb-just as cold. A feeling of melancholy but excitement came over me in my darkroom. My mind enjoyed this process of turning a white, light-sensitive paper into an image. I was cut off from all the noise and associations of society. I did not care what happened at home and I was uninterested as long I was in the darkroom. I was searching for comfort in this familiar place of darkness and it produced a deep pleasure being there and hopefully, it brought a kind of sweet reward. While I was in my darkroom, I did not speak; there was no reason to speak. I listened to the classical station on the radio. The darkroom cut out the busyness and the bothers of human society. Coming here, I found profound joy in becoming one with my negatives and my pictures.

When I came to Tucson ten years ago things changed. First, we wanted to stay for only a few months and then go back to the city. I tried to find inspiration in nature, in the desert, but wherever I went there was just blazing sun. I was unable to find shadows, and I am not talking about deep shadows. My images turned out light and flat. The clubs around town were unfamiliar to me. I always had in mind “we are going back soon”. I started spending lots of time swimming, hiking, and thinking “we are going back soon”. I built a darkroom in my garage;









I found a photo store to buy chemicals and films, but I was so shocked at the limited varieties available that I just turned around and went home disappointed. Then 9/11 happened, galleries were not interested in my pictures anymore, people were obsessed with the new real thing, pictures from the destroyed towers in ash, cars covered in dust, and people with the thrill of horror in their eyes, exhausted from their endurance. I didn’t have any fuel to drive my photography, and I was hoping “we are going back soon”. Then three years later, without letting me know, the handyman of our building cleared out my darkroom in New York. He threw out or destroyed all my negatives and pictures. All was gone, gone was all. I thought somebody pulled out my soul. Photography was my life. The only pictures I saved and brought with me to Tucson are the pictures of the garbage and some portraits, but no negatives. The digital camera started to appear and I missed the bridge to cross over to the new thing. I was not ready to let go of my precious room-of-one’s-own, the new printing would in future be on the computer, the whole dynamic of printing would change. The whole industry of photography changed rapidly and I feel kind of left out.