Darkroom – Conversation with Anders Petersen

Here, in this part of Stockholm that once was the city’s absolute centre, some of the streets bustle with tourists from around the world. But if you just turn a corner you can end up in inconspicuous alleyways where the sun seldom shines. At best you might meet someone taking out the trash or who is on their way to work.

On an old wooden door is an unremarkable aluminium sign that reads ‘Anders Petersen’ in punched lettering. It has been there for thirty five years. Obvious marks on the door show that there have been several other signs there too. The door is ajar, as is usual when company is expected. I descend a grey painted, heavy-duty wooden stairway. Here, halfway below street level, it opens out into several small rooms and recesses. The walls are covered with shelving that holds files as well as old photographic-paper boxes marked ‘Roxy’, ‘Elfie’, ‘Lothar’, ‘Ramona’ and ‘Holländske luffaren’ while computer monitors sit on workbenches.

A man in a black hood sits bent over one of the computers. Music fills the room.“You have to have good music playing when working in a photo lab”, says Anders Petersen with a welcome, inviting me in to one of the larger rooms. Here, two walls are covered with photographs pinned up while small prints from a commercial photo-lab lie in long rows. On another wall are a few 30 x 40 cm enlargements in various versions. Furnishings consist of a small round table and a long couch set against one of the walls, along with a large armchair in worn-out red leather.

A third wall is covered with shelving that houses files – a whole life’s work of negatives by one of Sweden’s most renowned photographers. They bear titles such as ‘Rom’, ‘Venedig’, ‘Röda rummet’, ‘Kungsan’, ‘Groningen utvalt’, ‘Calcutta’ and ‘Kvinnokliniken Karlstad’. In the smaller rooms photographers are working on computers. A doorway covered by a black curtain leads into one of the two darkrooms. Yet another stairway down is Anders’ darkroom. It is said that this part of the building can be traced back to the 1500s.

The whole place has an air of strict order and creative chaos. Finished prints are lying in acid-free boxes. Negatives to be printed lie in piles in their old and yellowed paper-sleeves. Contact sheets, retouching brushes and magnifiers are lying about just as naturally as orange ‘LaCie’ hard-disks and calibrated computer monitors.

This is a place where many photographers have been over the years, some came seeking advice, some came to show their work over cake and coffee while others came looking for work as assistants or even in search of a place to work themselves. It started by Olle Lindstedt and Anders joining forces and renovating the premises that once had been a firewood and coal suppliers’ store. As Olle was also a trained plumber, he fitted all the necessary pipework installations but after a few years he left the photography business, leaving Anders as the sole owner. Since then many photographers have rented spaces and based themselves here for shorter or longer periods. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this locality has been, and still is, an important place in Swedish subjective documentary photography.

We sit ourselves down and Anders pours the coffee.

T. A.

This quote by you about a 15th of a second – “If you’ve been there once you will always want to go back again”. What do you really mean by that?

A. P.

I mean that in a 15th of a second there is a surprising length of time that is unpredictable. You can’t control it and that can be quite disturbing and confusing. What I mean is that it’s in the darkness, where you can’t make an exposure, that meaningful things can happen.

It’s like a sort of magnet. You get so used to it that it becomes almost addictive. Nowadays though I’m more interested in the sensualism that exists in strong light. The kind of light that’s almost electric; like there is a kind of burning presence about.

T. A.

You often say that you like to be around people. Do you never feel that the camera becomes a disturbing factor just when you have made good contact with someone?

A. P.

No, never. Just the opposite; it can create an extra dimension to it all. It can feel like we have something in common. I have to take what comes. I see someone at a distance, approach them and ask if I can take some photographs. I tell them who I am and what I want the pictures for; though often I don’t really know what I will do with them myself. Nowadays I also give them my business card where it states that I am a photographer. But as my camera is small and looks a bit silly it often happens that they don’t really take me seriously. I’ve been lucky though and met lots of interesting people.

Many have got the idea that I only photograph people who are marginalised in some way or other but that’s wrong. I try to capture what unites us, whatever their situation is. What I want to show in my work is what binds us together, not what separates us. But then again, I am adventurous, so I like doing things I really shouldn’t do.

T. A.

But you must have bumped into some who have evil intentions as well?

A. P.

Oh yes. Once in Las Palmas, at four a’clock in the morning. You know, in the small hours, when the law doesn’t apply and things that happen then ‘haven’t happened’. There were two guys who robbed me. One pulled my trousers down to my knees and grabbed me while the other one hacked my glasses to pieces with a knife. I pushed the one attacking me back and threw the camera after him. I had another camera in my rucksack that was pressed against a wall. There was a crowd of around thirty people just standing and staring. It was nasty. What’s so difficult about being a victim is that it makes you suspicious and then you can’t take photographs. I trust people and don’t want to hurt them. That’s my trump card though – I like people.

T. A.

Is it more difficult to approach people today than before?

A. P.

It was easier in the seventies. Nowadays a lot of people are wary of being exposed on the ‘net. I’ve been spared that issue in the main. I normally talk to them except where everything happened so fast that I couldn’t identify them. But over seventy percent, at least, of my pictures are a result of meeting people face to face in pubs, at dinners, parties or on the street. That’s how it comes about. It either develops or it doesn’t. It’s a simple process.

T. A.

I’d like to talk about your equipment.

A. P.

I use a Contax T3 and a Ricoh GR1v. I’m just satisfied with a camera that works, quite simply. A camera should be like a horse in a way. It should obey you; a little nudge on the left should let it know that you want to go that way. You can develop an organic connection with a camera as if it were a third arm.

We talked a lot about that when I was at photo school; that you should be friends with your camera. Christer Strömholm, our tutor, told us to sleep with the camera. It was meant symbolically but I did in fact sleep with my Nikon F for a while.

T. A.

Do you find that people react differently according to which camera you use?

A. P.

That depends more on how you carry the camera and how or what you photograph. If you show a great respect for this metallic thing, you will be met with a certain reaction. If, on the other hand, you appear to be a little less respectful, then the reaction will be different. I often carry my camera in my hand, with the strap around my wrist.

T. A.

In the 1990s, when you were working on a book about a psychiatric institution, you changed your trusty 35mm format camera to a larger format camera; a Rolleiflex 6x6 cm. Why was that?

A. P.

When I was working on the mental health project everything came to a halt after six moths. It was a dark period for me just then. I had a breakdown which meant I had a choice between two things; seeking help or carrying on working. I chose to carry on. In connection with that I changed not only camera format but my way of working too. Previously I had been using a Nikon FM2 and I was mostly shooting dramatic situations which I realised was completely wrong. It wasn’t about that. Speed wasn’t necessary. Besides which I later got the chance to visit the wards for longer periods.

I took photographs and gave prints all the time to both staff and patients. The Rolleiflex made me find a calmer, more meditative way of working. It was something new, looking down into the viewfinder, approaching the subject from below in a way.

The book ‘Ingen har sett allt’ was a part of a larger project. I call it a kind of ‘institution trilogy’. It started with ‘Fängelse’ about prisons then came ‘Rågång till kärlek’ about elderly care and lastly mental healthcare. The prison was difficult because you had to be friends with the inmates while at the same time friends with the warders and surveillance staff. You couldn’t be seen to be too friendly with one and not the other.

One time I had been invited to a meal by one of the inmates of a section. One guy turned up, just back from a furlough. He pounced on me straightaway – “You’re not supposed to be here!” He was drugged and going to attack me. One of the others stood in front of him saying, “If you’re going to hit him, then you’ll have to hit me first”. It was a tense moment, just like a film. Prison is about alliances and you are constantly being monitored by cameras. The staff see everything.

I want to get at what is locked away. I’ve always been interested in it – that which lies behind those locked doors. I started with elderly care after my father died in 1986. All these things are about personal connections. I knew people who worked at the mental hospital and prison and I knew patients and inmates.

T. A.

You think it’s important to be close in your photographic work?

A. P.

People have this idea that you don’t want to be disturbed, you shouldn’t just cut in, that it’s something wrong. But it is exactly what you should do. Or rather you should make contact, which sounds a bit better. And say what you want. It’s not so strange and people are OK with that generally.

The sort of photography that I’m involved with is all about getting close. How you approach people as well as how you bring up the idea of being photographed.

Much of the photography that I like is about how the photographer is or moves – body language. That demands a lot of experience. To be able to predict what’s going to happen so that you are in the right place at the right time. Most important of all though is getting as close as you can.

The pictures I have the most problem with are those that are taken without the photographer losing themselves, that are taken from some position of damn security, where you take no risks.

When you take a chance, you’ve started the fire. Look at Josef Koudelkas pictures or Edvan der Elskens works. They expose themselves to disapproval but also to the opposite, to love and feelings of closeness.

If you have that kind of approach to photography it becomes a dependency, a sort of identity. But it’s a lonely life. You steal a moment of togetherness for yourself. Photographers are often solitary figures; there is no collective body marching along. That is what I mean in the title to my book “Close Distance”.

T. A.

You often give your prints away. Is that a part of your working philosophy?

A. P.

Not to all, but I do give them away fairly often, it’s true. Sometimes it can be crazy. I gave Marlene, whom I met at the Café Lehmitz in 1967, a 24x30 cm print. She tore it up until just the face was left and only then was she satisfied. “It’s not that bad”, she said. I was naïve. What would she do with a 24x30 print? She had a wallet and lived in various hotel rooms.

The pictures I am now printing from Hamburg are extremely difficult. In the beginning I didn’t have an exposure meter and it was only later that I bought one. You can ask Ann Christine Eek, my colleague at Saftra how she struggled when she was going to help me print my thin negatives. Without her there would not have been any “Café Lehmitz”.

T. A.

How do you normally work in the darkroom? How do you develop your films?

A. P.

I use those big Paterson tanks that hold five spirals. The developer is D-76 developer, concentrated at 20’ C. I always use Tri-X. I don’t push process anymore and so I develop for 7-8 minutes depending a little on how old the developer is and what I photographed. If I have been where it was quite dark then I will add on an extra minute or agitate a little more.

T. A.

Do you use a pre-soak, wetting the film before development?

A. P.

Yes, I do actually. I have this idea that it will produce a more even and slightly softer result. I don’t know if it does, I just do it anyway. I have two tanks of water and I always develop ten rolls at a time. I let the films drip most of the water off then drop the spirals into the developer. I only use open tanks and never put the lids on. I’ve got used to doing that. It has to be pitch black. I agitate twice a minute and turn the spirals round. When the time is up I put the films in water again – the same water – dunk them up and down and turn them around. I let them drip a little first and then place them in the fix tank, which has a floating lid.

Firstly though I have of course checked the fix to see that it’s OK. Fix lasts a long time! I agitate all the time for 3–4 minutes. The spirals are then washed for 25–30 minutes in other tanks that squirt the water throughout. They were specially built by Patrik Sjövall. The water enters in the middle and then runs off over the edges. Perfect! Then I hang up the films to dry.

T. A.

Do you usually wipe the film or use wetting agent?

A. P.

No, I don’t use wetting agent but I do wipe the shiny side with a chamois. I don’t use heat as I don’t think it’s a good idea; the films should just hang there.

I probably still do today what I did when I described my method in the book “Mörkrum 1” (Fyra förläggare, 1984). At that time I was shooting often with fast film and pushing it to 1600 ASA. I was working in the prison then. I pushed some of those films quite a lot, some to 1600, some at 400.

I always make contact sheets and choose from them. I then contact Mikael Anderson, a friend and photographic colleague, who scans the pictures I’ve chosen. Sometimes he complains – “Come on, you can’t use that one”– so we ditch that one. He guides my choice a little. He’s got a good eye for it and we think a little differently from each other. Then he brings me a USB memory stick with high-res images on it. You can make one and a half metre prints from those.

Erhan Can Akbulut and I have made six books together. I just say how I want the pictures to be and he does it on the computer screen. We collaborated well and he was very patient with me but he has his own books these days to do. So there’s a guy called Nikko Knösch who helps me now.

We then get some reference prints done at Crimson (a commercial photo lab in Stockholm) and with those I then make various combinations of the prints that I hand over to the designer, Greger Ulf Nilsson. He has 300 pictures right now that are going to be in the upcoming issues of ‘CityDiary’ books. He can always alter things or change the pictures around but it’s important for me to show him how I was thinking. We think roughly along the same lines.

T. A.

You work in a traditional wet darkroom when you produce ex-hibition prints. I read in an interview that you develop some prints for up to twenty minutes.

A. P.

Yes, but that was back in the seventies. In those days you could do that. There was a lot of silver in the paper but not anymore these days. I used a hard paper and you had to take it easy with the exposure to control the highlights so it was necessary to pull the print just at the right moment.

Nowadays when I print images such as that of Lilly and Rosen in the Café Lehmitz, I pre-flash a little. I follow that with the main exposure with all the dodging and burning required. I always stop down the same for all the exposures, normally f5.6. I use a ‘stocking filter’ for about 50% of the exposure, at least in the case of the Lehmitz pictures where the grain would be unbearable otherwise. The paper is then left in the developer for about 5 minutes, though never more than 7-8 minutes. The whole process takes a long time.

It’s a great feeling down there in the darkroom. All the the trays are filled with developer, stop bath, and fix so that everything is ready to go and you’re mind is totally focused. I like some nice music too. With the negative in place I analyse the situation – a little more exposure just here, perhaps more up there and those details will have to go, etc. You are there with your feelings and your pictures. You are there with the people you photographed getting to know them a second time around, down there in the developing tray slowly appearing and coming alive. It’s magic!

As the author of this article I feel there needs to be a little explanation of the tools and secrets often used in a ‘wet’ or ’analogue’ darkroom:
‘Pre-flash’ or ‘flashing’ is often carried out using a piece of frosted glass but a piece of translucent white plastic cut from the long side of an empty developer container also works.

A section of material cut from some nylon tights is used to act as a ‘diffuser’ or ‘stocking filter’. It is stretched and taped over a hole cut out of a piece of cardboard, often using the discarded lid from an empty box of photographic paper. This can be a little experimental requiring adjustments to be made as stretching too much might not give the desired effect and stretching too little might not provide enough diffusion.

A ‘dodger’ is also a useful tool to control the tone in a print. It normally consists of a length of wire with a piece of black cardboard attached to one end. This is then waived a little in the path of the projected image over the area that was considered a little too dark.

‘Burning’, for areas considered a little too light, can also be used. The simplest tools for this particular action though are the hands that can shade certain areas of the paper.

A more advance method of controlling the tones in a print is to use ‘Farmers Reducer’ (potassium ferricyanide solution). Here, specific areas can be lightened by applying it to the print with a brush. A warning is needed though as it is normal practice to halt print development by using acidic stop or fix baths. The combination of these solutions however can cause the production of very poisonous cyanide gas! Always use waterproof gloves. And now back to our conversation...

T. A.

You have always shared your premises with others in a kind of collective.

A. P.

That’s right, even from the Saftra times. Kenneth Gustavsson and I began on the 1st January, 1967. We rented some premises in the autumn of ‘66. In the beginning we weren’t called Saftra. Christer Strömholm and Tor Ivan Odulf came up with suggestions for a name – I think I still have them somewhere. But they were perhaps a little pretentious. We wanted something that no one understood.

I had previously worked on a newspaper together with my friends, a kind of literary publication that had no name so we called it Saftra. One of us had studied Russian in high school and Saftra is Russian for ‘early dawn’ or ‘morning’, so it was kind of symbolic. A new dawn ... well, a new day for us in any case, and nobody got it. I liked that.

T. A.

You took part in, amongst other things, ’Stoppa Mässan’ together with the ’Bildaktivisterna’. You photographed and created photo-
graphic exhibitions that protested against a commercial youth fair ongoing at the time.

A. P.

We were novices then. We pasted up pictures around the town. I think it was about then that Ann Christine Eek joined and Neil Goldstein. Göran Wingstrand came a little later. Ben Kaila and Risto Vuorimes who were at the photo school joined as well. Then there was Ove Holmkvist, Cecilia Borggård, Jean Montgrenier, Maurice Müller, Lars Hesselmark, and Peter de Ru plus many more.

T. A.

What happens at a workshop?

A. P.

We start by me talking about my entry into photography and about photographic history. Photography is like a sort of large family tree. On one of the branches are Strömholm, Ed van der Elsken, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, Wee Gee, Robert Frank, Michael Ackerman; just to name a few.

I mention that my roots are in ‘documentary photography’ but I’ve probably been a ‘private documentary photographer’ for a long time; more subjective nowadays.

We look at pictures, mine and theirs – I have to know what they can do. And that alone can take two days. Then I give them various assignments: “Bye, bye! See you tomorrow at nine o’clock in the morning”

By then we have discussed how you can take photographs. I try to find out what they want, really. They should follow their desires and that’s not so easy. The head is a big limitation for photographers. It’s strange that people haven’t written more about it – the advantage of being a little dumb, a bit naïve, innocent. It’s nothing to be concerned about, it’s often only to the good.

T. A.

Do you think they copy your style too much?

A. P.

No, they are in the process of developing their own style. I usually say: Don’t fuss so much about attitude, just get stuck right in. If you feel like being romantic – be romantic. If you feel like being lonesome or pathetic – be lonesome or pathetic. Just carry on if you like, but do something. It’s only when you’ve done it too much that it becomes something. It must be tangible – solid.

We talk about the importance of training and of having self respect; believing in oneself. It’s about being clear about what you want. Now, take that photograph!

T. A.

And you are going through your old negatives again?

A. P.

I like it. I look at my choice and it doesn’t agree completely and absolutely with the choice of image I might make today. I’m looking a great deal through my old negative folders for pictures that would be suitable for the book project I’m working on now. In ‘City Diary’, that’s a kind of journal, I’m mixing new pictures with old ones. Gösta Fleming and I are working on a book with photographs from Hamburg, Stockholm, Genoa and Paris from 1967–1970, most of them previously unpublished.

When you get older, other people expect you to know how everything works. But the truth is that you don’t know at all. The more you know, the less you know. When I was younger I knew everything. Goodness, life’s too short, don’t you think so sometimes?

Darkroom – Conversation with Anders Petersen

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