Bicentenary of Photography

A book that invites photographers to reveal their printing practice and gives a voice to printmakers—those artisans in the shadows—to share their perspective and their intimate relationship with photographic materiality.

© Michel Campeau, Montréal, Québec, Canada, file no 7987, “Darkroom” series (2005-2010). Michel Campeau is represented by Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris.

The book presents excerpts from interviews with printmakers, both men and women. These testimonies bring to life the technical as well as emotional history of photographic printing by revealing the gestures, doubts, and decisions that remain invisible behind each image. These accounts immerse the reader in the intimacy of the darkroom, where light becomes material and the image truly takes shape. They describe a craft passed down hand to hand, often from one generation to the next, blending artisanal precision, artistic vision, and a living memory of photography. Through these testimonies, another history of photography emerges: that of the “transmitters of light,” long kept in the shadows.

A series of photographs highlights the original practices of photographers in relation to the laboratory. It features ten portfolios by photographers all connected to the experimental residency Picto Lab, created by the PICTO laboratories in 2020. These photographs illustrate the diverse creative approaches of both emerging and more established photographers, whose work relies in part on this passage through the darkroom. They reveal some artists’ interest in experimenting with new techniques, while others are drawn to rediscovering historical processes. Together, they show how photographic printing fosters a tactile, embodied relationship with paper, light, and time—one that digital practices have largely tended to erase.

“The magic of the photographic laboratory lies largely in this moment when the image emerges in the dark. Among the accounts and testimonies describing this moment, that of Secondo Pia, mayor of Asti, jurist, and amateur photographer, is one of the most striking.

Pia took the first photographs of the Shroud of Turin, the cloth believed to bear faint traces of an imprint of the body and face of Christ. The images were made during the display of the relic in 1898, inside Turin Cathedral on the night of May 28–29, using artificial lighting.

During development in the darkroom, as the glass plate negative bathed in the developing solution, an epiphany occurred: ‘Locked in my studio, fully absorbed in my work, I experienced a very strong emotion when, during development, I saw the Holy Face appear on the plate from the very beginning’ (Loth, 1909).

The face and body appeared in positive form, whereas normally the tonal values should have been inverted. How many photographic vocations, how many generations of enthusiasts, have been born at that precise moment—when, in the darkness, the image appears for the very first time?”

Excerpt from the introduction by Luce Lebart, photography historian.

At the moment the image appears, what is happening for you? How do you recognize the “right” version?

“It is a rather indescribable moment, more a matter of sensation than analysis, which depends on the relationship built beforehand with the artist or photographer. The more accurate the dialogue, the stronger this moment of clarity becomes. You feel the birth of the image before being able to explain it.”

Julie Laporte, a graduate of Paris 8 University, runs the Anthracite laboratory and teaches at the Beaux-Arts de Paris and at ENSP Arles. She was awarded the Florence & Damien Bachelot Collection Print Prize in 2021.

ABOUT LUCE LEBART

A photography historian, her career has led her to hold senior positions in several institutions in France and abroad, including the Hérault Departmental Archives, the Société française de photographie in Paris, and the Canadian Photography Institute.

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Since 2018, she has collaborated with the Archive of Modern Conflict, where she serves as the French correspondent, and has been associate curator of the Fotografia Europea festival since 2022. In 2026, she was appointed artistic director of the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier.

An exhibition curator at the Rencontres d’Arles and in numerous institutions, she is the author of more than twenty photography books, including Les grands photographes du XXe siècle (Larousse), and co-editor of Une histoire mondiale des femmes photographes (Textuel / Thames & Hudson).

ABOUT VINCENT MARCILHACY

Editor and artistic director. He joined the VU’ agency in 1996, where he successively held several positions before creating the Special Projects department.

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In 2008, he created VU MAG in collaboration with the VU’ agency, a biannual magazine offering a cross-disciplinary approach to photography. Between 2009 and 2012, he directed the Galerie VU’, founded in 1997. In 2016, he co-founded Picto Foundation with Philippe Gassmann, the endowment fund of the PICTO laboratory, which he has directed since its creation.

Since 2012, he has co-directed the label The Eyes, which develops activities in publishing, cultural content production, and consultancy in the field of photography.

about PICTO

For more than 75 years, PICTO has been a benchmark for imaging professionals. Founded in 1950 by Pierre Gassmann, a humanist figure and friend of the great photographers of his time (Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Marc Riboud, among others), PICTO became a specialist in the graphic production chain, combining artisanal expertise with new technologies.

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The laboratory supports photographers, museums, institutions, and galleries in producing prints for their exhibitions. It provides advertising and luxury industry players with its expertise in retouching and visual communication, and offers online access to its high-quality services through Picto Online.

PICTO has become the leading photographic laboratory in its sector in France and is expanding internationally, with offices in New York, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.

Under the leadership of Philippe Gassmann, the company has sought to extend and sustain its commitments to photography and its practitioners through the creation of its endowment fund.

Picto Foundation now supports photographers through awards and exhibitions, while also sharing its expertise with new generations of photographers and image-makers.