Bob Gallagher is one of our emerging artists in residency here at The Darkroom. He is experimenting with motion using the 3D format, shooting on black and white film. This is very different to the usual colour 3D images we are used to seeing and requires a lot of technique using shadows and highlights to emphasise separation. He has embraced all the challenges that this project has thrown at him. We are looking forward to showcasing this work with his up and coming exhibition at The Darkroom.

From the artist:

“I joined the Darkroom as Emerging Artist in Residence this year to develop my analogue photography skills and apply them to my approach as a filmmaker. Aside from re-learning the skills of processing and printing (It’s been about 10 years since I’ve stepped foot in a darkroom) I wanted to find a way to overlap these skills with my filmmaking background, and create some work that would combine the two crafts.

The project I’m developing for exhibition is a series of 3D portraits. The images are taken on an analogue 35mm camera, the negatives are processed by hand, and then once the negs are scanned I can edit them to become a moving image. The camera I’m using shoots four perspectives at once, so it gives the effect of freezing a moment while giving you a sense that the camera is moving within that moment. 

This works especially well in instances where there should be movement within the frame (an object falling or a piece of clothing caught in the wind for example) but it appears frozen. I started by testing the camera with different flashes. Using flash or having hard shadows in shot is something I would generally avoid in film lighting but with this camera the flash actually adds to the depth because you see the movement of the shadow as the perspective changes.

One of the benefits of being in residency in the darkroom is the access to facilities and equipment, for example working with flash lighting setups and having access to the darkroom for the chemical processing and printing. What’s really invaluable about the residency though is having the support and expertise of Mella to develop and challenge the creative side of my work. Being able to participate in some of the Darkroom workshops with Mella has been great creatively, especially the portraiture workshop which helped a lot when it came to staging my own shoots. 

After a few test rolls to get my metering and processing up to speed I started shooting portraits with musicians. A large part of my work is in music video so it seemed like a natural continuation of that to apply the 3D technique to photographing musicians. In each case the musicians and I have developed ideas for images that relate to a specific piece of music they’re working on. The final shots should dramatise some element of the song, and in the moving image version of each portrait a small section of the music will be used as a soundtrack.

Some of the artists I’ve worked with so far are Participant, Wastefellow, Junior Brother, TPM, and Loah. Shooting TPM performing ‘Fuck RTE’ in the studio was a particular highlight. For the final exhibition I’ll exhibit the moving image and sound clips as well as large scale black and white prints. 

Bob’s exhibition opens on the 22nd of March from 6.30PM -9.30PM at the Darkroom