| After 17 years as tenants we purchased the freehold of 12 Valentine Place in November 2004. Taking over the building also included taking over and renovating the lab of our previous landlord, Downtown Darkroom. After the consumption of many gallons of paint (and a few glasses of muscle relaxant) we have now got the lab looking like it did when it opened nearly 18 years ago. Day to day operations on the print side are by Sharon Easterling, who previously worked for the original Downtown Darkroom for 17 years, and was trained by Mike Spry. |
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| Downtown was one of the first black and white art-orientated labs labs to emerge in the 1970's, and made full use of the top-quality papers then emerging, notably Agfa Record-Rapid and Brovira, which were just being relaunched into a new quality conscious market. Mike Spry, one of the original partners in Downtown was one of the first printers to nail down 'lith' printing in half tone, and as far as we know actually discovered its use with Oriental Seagull paper. Mike is still working at no 12, but is now mainly concentrating on large prints (20x24" plus), principally on fibre-base paper. We have put in new machinery, with a big spread of enlarging equipment right up to point-source heads. Film processing is all by hand, with a wide choice of different chemistries available, and we can even use infra-red equipment to develop by inspection if required. We also have film writing gear, and can 'bridge the gap' between digital and analogue, converting from digital files to film base when necessary. See price list PDF in links. |
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