We are excited to announce the arrival of BJ Ball’s new swatch collection. It’s amazing! We are working our way through them and will be selecting some new and exciting papers to add to our existing catalogue. These papers will be ideal for short run economical art prints. Keep a lookout for more information.
We adore Katrina, 12 years ago she was our first client. Her work was featured in the exhibition “tide”. We are still printing Katrina’s photographs that are being sold in her store at 187 Ponsonby Road, Auckland.
We had so much fun at the Katrina Hobbs store opening last week. Her store is full of artistic accessories. Katrina says that she has “a fascination with color, texture and design, experimenting with each element to create works that express and unravel an individual story.” These elements are evident in her store and shine through in her photographic prints, cushions, throws and scarves.
To find out more about Katrina’s amazing new store click here.
Tide 2007
We’ve been thinking about our paper catalogue and decided that our fine art section didn’t really make sense. The Epsom Hot Press Natural and Epsom Cold Press Natural were too similar. For some time we’ve had Hahnemuhle German Etching as an off catalogue and it has been producing stunning results. It’s become apparent that our Epsom Cold Press Natural has become pretty much redundant.
We’re not the only people who love German etching. “I have no desire to hide or disguise the photographic intent of the images I make. So my reason for liking this paper is not because it tricks viewers into imagining the image to be drawn or painted. No: I like it because it makes the right sort of image look astonishingly but subtly lyrical.” - Tim Ashley Photography
Check out our pricing page to look at our updated catalogue.
To ensure that we are delivering the best possible work we recently acquired a new Epson SureColor P9070 44” large format printer. The P9070 features a 2880 x 1440 dpi head delivering ultra-high resolution with superior half tones and optimised ink density. In addition, the 10 colour Epson UltraChrome HDX ink enables prints with a high dMax and wide colour gamut achieving 98% PANTONE certified coverage.
While Epson Premium Lustre is an excellent general purpose resin coated photo paper we have been hunting for a fibre based photo paper alternative. We have selected Legion Paper's Moab Juniper Baryta Rag. Legion Paper carry an amazing array of papers, from restoration and conservation through to platinum printing papers. Somewhere in the midst of this range is Juniper Baryta Rag, a 100% cotton, true baryta (barium sulphate) paper. We are totally jazzed by this paper, no wonder it gets such great reviews.
"I love the texture of the paper, which is so subtle it's almost smooth-but definitely there. I printed both color and black-and-white images on the paper and found the detail, color saturation, and overall contrast range to all be outstanding. The large areas of black in one of my images reproduced with an extremely elegant richness." Andrew Darlow - New York Photographer
"...a printing paper that can deliver pleasing results over a wide range of images in both color and monochrome. Moab’s Juniper Baryta Rag seems to do that well when going for deeply saturated or more pastel-valued color images and in monochrome prints that rely on deep blacks or more high-key values. The base color does not intrude on the color or monochrome values; indeed, it enriches saturated colors and I noted no unwanted color cast shifts in fully dry B&W images." George Schaub for Shutterbug
We are stoked with the outcome of our test prints and have added Moab Juniper Rag 305 to our paper catalogue and the first customers to experience this paper have been excited by the results.
‘Shift’ is a collaboration between Ben Young and Zico. Over the last few months, Ben and Zico have been working together on designing a sculpture and then photographing on location at White Island, New Zealand’s most active volcano.
It was a pleasure working so closely with Zico, we would print proofs Zico would refine his images and we would print fresh proofs until, together, we produced a series of prints that met Zico's extremely high standards.
Zico selected Epson Hot Press Natural and we are totally stoked with how well they printed, plus Factory Frames did a stunning job of framing, resulting in an exhibition we can all be proud of. We can't wait to be involved in Zico's next endeavour.
The show closes on the 27th of July
Jon traveled extensively over a three year period to build this body of work. Guardians is a collection of photographs exploring the camera’s potential to capture the unseen. Uncertainty mixes hope, magical thinking and reminiscence. We really enjoyed working with Jon and printing for this exhibition, the pieces are printed on EPSOM Enhanced Matt and we are fully stoked with the result.
Hum • 2 June - 24 June
Opens 5:30pm on Friday 1 June
Hours Friday to Sundays 10am – 7pm
Where 123 Grafton Rd.Grafton Bridge, Auckland
for more infomation click here
After being diagnosed with cancer, Andrew decided to explore New Zealand and capture landscapes evoking feelings of wonder, peace, and tranquility. Andrew is fascinated by the human struggle with the landscape and was inspired by the heeling nature that he witnessed. During the period of his chemo therapy, on the days he was strong enough, he would come to the studio and work through the images choosing the most relevant and making decisions on composition and color. It was inspiring work along side someone who was able to replace the challenge of the chemo with a fascination for the New Zealand landscape. If you are interested in finding out more about this collection you can email him at anorton@xtra.co.nz
The question we get asked most often >>>>> is there anywhere to park? And realistically the answer is, not really. It is time to take action. WE ARE MOVING. But where, you ask. We don't know and would like your help. You know what we do, we need about 90sq m, easy parking and not too far from where we are now.
If you do know of anything we'd really appreciate you calling us on 09 638 8161 or emailing us at info@thedigitaldarkroom.co.nz
To forgive is divine. But at what cost?
Released from a twenty year incarceration, a woman travels back to a small mining town where she lived and worked to reconnect with her past, and to find the father of the child she murdered. In facing the truth, the two may lose everything- or find the unexpected.
Finding Temeraire looks into the unravelling of human relationships against the backdrop of an old mining town in Zimbabwe. Written and directed by award winning playwright, Stanley Makuwe, the hour long play features an all- African cast of Tawanda Manyimo (Ghost in the shell) and Sandra Zvenyika (In Transit)
The Digital Darkroom is proud to be a sponsor of Finding Temeraire. Opening night is on Tuesday 17th October at the Basement Theatre.
We will be giving away two VIP tickets to the opening night for a lucky subscriber to our mailing list. The draw will be held at 6pm on Friday 13th October. Lucky winner will be advised by email.
If you are not currently on our mailing list and wish to be in the draw, sign up to our mailing list here
To purchase tickets, just click here
Guy Needham is a travel photographer whose work primarily focuses on cultures, drawing on themes of identity and place.
His images have appeared in National Geographic Creative, National Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet, AFAR, CNN.com and International Traveler as well as being used by Tourism Australia, Papua New Guinea Tourism and Vanuatu Tourism. He has exhibited in London, New York, Tokyo, Moscow, Zagreb and here in New Zealand and is a member of the Royal Photographic Society and the World Photographic Organisation.
The Mentawai people live in an island group 150km off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Considered one of the planet's most ancient tribes, today they are still found deep in the island jungle. The Mentawai have a unique culture with their own language. Most of the older villagers are decorated with tattoos and Mentawai women are known for their sharpened teeth. The men are expert hunters, to this day still using arrows tipped with poison made from the forest. Discussing the creative decisions around the exhibition, Guy explains "This exhibition is a testament to their simple way of life and pure sense of self. The monochrome images use contrast in a wider sense, echoing the differences between their uncluttered lives and ours."
We are producing a series of A1 and A0 Ilford GALERIE Smooth Pearl 310gsm black and white prints for Guy's exhibition, the first is shown above.
To find out more:
The paper - Ilford GALERIE Smooth Pearl 310gsm
The exhibition - the mentawai of indonesia