Spectral Echoes Redux

Back in October last year I wrote about the street photographer in Athens who I photographed back in 1979 whilst on holiday there [Spectral Echoes]. Interesting then to come across the Afghan Box Camera Project which is dedicated to keeping this style of photography alive, despite its falling out of use almost everywhere in the world. This type of portrait camera was used practically everywhere where there was a plentiful supply of bright sunlight - in Afghanistan principally for producing ID pictures cheaply, but more generally for holiday portraiture - the technique remains in use well into the twenty-first century. There is a lovely little video describing the technique of taking pictures with the Afghan Box Camera (kamra-e-faoree), which can also be seen directly on Vimeo: Using an Afghan Box Camera .

I really like projects like this, keeping alive historical techniques that one could easily assume had withered and died under the onslaught of the ubiquitous smartphone and digital life in general. However, production of film, darkroom chemistry and equipment continues apace throughout the world, paradoxically aided by the digital ecology of the internet, which allows the championing of 'folk' techniques such as these so easily, with a welcome proliferation of websites, YouTube channels and social media enabling easy sharing of ideas, knowledge and enthusiasm, and bringing new blood to a craft most thought dead and gone only a decade or two ago. The great thing about the current crop of chemical photographers is a willingness to use a neat hybrid of old and new, analogue and digital, to produce and disseminate images: originate on film, print and distribute digitally: the best of both worlds. The future of photography looks well assured...