It started with a show
A show at Andrew Pielage's drive-thru gallery, built around eight Phoenix film photographers. Daniel shot two portraits of each, their face and them holding their camera, and set the prints behind salvaged enlarger lenses in handmade, industrial-looking rigs. Above each rig hung one of that photographer's own film photos, with a short Q&A alongside. The point was to show a community already working together, and how much it needed a darkroom of its own.
A community finds each other
Those conversations turned into a scene. Film shooters around Phoenix realized how many of us there were, and how little existed to support the work.
We need a darkroom
There was nowhere local to develop and print by hand. If this community was going to grow, it needed a home with trays, tanks, and an enlarger.
The GoFundMe
So we asked, and the community chipped in dollar by dollar. Donated gear piled up faster than we could store it: first a rented storage unit, then Daniel's parents' back porch, where a darkroom's worth of equipment blended right in.
Home on Grand Avenue
We signed the lease July 1. Two days later, Linda Ingraham sold us her darkroom sink, 40 by 80 inches, hauled out of a studio with a broken swamp cooler in the July heat. The darkroom finally had four walls, a red light, and a sink big enough to work in.
The first workshops
Our first workshop was color film processing, and it sold out. Forty dollars a seat, and Daniel ran it over a hot plate before we owned anything fancier.
Work on the walls
The gallery came to life with our first exhibitions, putting local analog photographers' work where the community could gather around it.
The community gathers
Meetups, photo walks, and print nights gave shooters a reason to get together, camera in hand, no experience required.
Stacy joins, and a wedding
Stacy took a film-development workshop, kept coming back, and started bringing Daniel food because he'd stopped remembering to eat. She and Daniel married, and set out to build the next chapter together.
More classes, more nights
Workshops and events kept multiplying: new subjects, more instructors, and a calendar that finally felt full.
On the air
We launched the podcast: conversations with photographers, darkroom lore, and the stories behind the prints.
Made by the community
Community book and zine projects turned members' work into things you could hold: printed, bound, and shared.
The traveling photobooth
We took analog on the road, bringing a real film photobooth to events across the valley.
Taking over the whole space
When our studio mate Jeff Slim moved on, we took his side of the building, finally enough room to keep making and showing apart.
Up Close Gallery is born
With the extra space the gallery became its own room, and took the name Up Close, from one of our earliest shows. The gallery on one side, the darkroom on the other, two halves of the same mission.
Into the future
More classes, more shows, more community. We're only getting started, and there's a place for you in whatever comes next.