To mark the reopening of Photochats in Spring 2023, almost three years after the longstanding photography project closed due to the onset of the Covid pandemic, a new exhibition is on show in teh Library Bar.

Left In the Dark offers a selection both colour and black and white images from Kazakhstan to Hackney Downs and from Belfast to Camber Sands.

All were printed in Photochats darkrooms over the last couple of decades and either donated to the Photochats collection, or in many cases, just left to dry in the darkroom and never picked up!

The pictures portray contrasting styles and themes.  The changing urban landscape of East London (M.11 extension, Greenwich Peninsula, Hackney Wick allotments); social documentary such as the collage depicting the London protest of the killing of Russian human rights journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006; or archive prints from the north east of England in the early 1970’s; portraits, often using old family negatives, young people at the seaside in the 1980’s or in the studio in more recent times.

Old school wet darkroom techniques of collage, photograms and out of date paper use are all on display.

Thanks to Derek Smith, Robert Moye, Anna Soper, Gene, Esme Waterfield, Joyce NG, Andy Clydesdale, Jereme Vallee Kallezis, Asya Gefter and various persons unknown.

For more information about Photochats darkroom in 2023 contact photochats10@yahoo.com