Handcrafted prints from the Darkroom

New: Handcrafted Analogue Prints from the Darkroom

A new series has just landed in the shop — and this one is extra close to my heart.

This collection of black and white analogue photographs has been entirely created by hand, from start to finish. Every image is shot on film, developed in my own darkroom, and printed slowly and deliberately on museum-quality paper. In a time where images are often instant, edited, and endlessly reproducible, this body of work moves in the opposite direction: it embraces slowness, materiality, and imperfection as essential parts of the process.

These prints are not just images. They are physical objects shaped by time, chemistry, light, and touch.

A project about kink, softness, and control

At the core of this series lies a thematic exploration of kink, fetishism, intimacy, and emotional tension. But rather than approaching these subjects in a sensational or surface-level way, the work is grounded in a queer, emotional, and deeply human perspective.

This body of work is about power and surrender, control and vulnerability, dominance and softness — not as opposites, but as states that constantly overlap and shift. These are the contradictions that exist beneath desire, often unspoken but always present.

In If you know, you know, I explore kink and fetishism not as spectacle, but as language. A language made of gestures, silence, posture, tension, and gaze. The work does not try to explain itself in a literal sense. Instead, it operates in codes — visual fragments that resonate differently depending on the viewer’s lived experience.

For some, it may feel immediately familiar. For others, it may feel abstract or mysterious. That ambiguity is intentional. The work invites those who know to feel seen, and those who don’t to lean in, to question, and to engage more deeply with what lies beneath the surface of representation.

This is my queerest work yet — raw, unapologetic, and emotionally direct, while still leaving space for interpretation and silence.

Why I returned to the darkroom.

After years of working digitally, I found myself craving something slower, more tactile, and more physical.

Digital photography offers speed and precision, but it can also create distance. I wanted to return to a process where I am physically present in every stage of the image-making. The darkroom became that space again — a place where time slows down, where decisions are embodied, and where each print carries the trace of human touch.

There is something timeless about black and white photography. Without colour, the image becomes stripped down to light, shadow, form, and emotion. It asks the viewer to engage differently. To pause. To look longer. To feel more.

In the darkroom, nothing is automatic. Everything is manual. Every exposure, every adjustment, every print carries intention. And sometimes, unpredictability. Mistakes are not erased — they become part of the final image. This is what makes analogue photography so alive to me.

It is not about perfection. It is about presence.

About the Process. 

Each image in this series begins as a medium format negative, shot on black and white film. From there, the film is developed using traditional chemical processes before entering the darkroom stage.

In the darkroom, I enlarge and expose each photograph by hand onto fibre-based baryta paper. This paper is known for its exceptional depth, tonal range, and archival stability. It allows the blacks to feel rich and dense while preserving subtle transitions in the grey scale — something that is essential to the emotional atmosphere of this series.

Every step of the process is done manually: exposure, development, stopping, fixing, washing, and drying. Nothing is outsourced or automated. Each print is handled individually, meaning every piece carries slight variations and traces of process.

For some images, I use a two-bath development technique to increase tonal depth and create softer transitions in the mid-tones and highlights. In the Netherlands, I am one of the few photographers still working with this method today. It is a slow and highly technical process, but it allows for a more nuanced emotional range within the final image.

After development, each print is thoroughly washed with a archival clearing agent. This ensures long-term stability and a lifespan of 75+ years, allowing the work to exist not just as a contemporary object, but as something that can be preserved and passed on.

The Limited Edition Prints.

This edition is strictly limited and produced in small runs only. There is no mass production, no open editions, and no automated reproduction.

Every print is:

• Hand-printed in the darkroom
• Individually signed and numbered
• Part of a strictly limited edition
• Printed on archival baryta paper with a lifespan of 75+ years

Because each print is made by hand, no two are ever completely identical. Small variations in tone, texture, and density are part of the nature of the process. These differences are not imperfections — they are evidence of the human presence behind each image.

This makes every print a unique object, even within the edition.

Check out the latest available work here.