John Cyr: Developer Trays

Silver gelatin processing, the stalwart of black and white reportage and fine art photography in the last century, declined as digital advanced. John Cyr has been taking uniform shots looking into the developing trays where residual silver stains the bottoms, a tangible memory of the process utterly removed in modern image making. These are no ordinary developing trays but those of artists like Ansel Adams and of the institutes like the Smithsonian – alchemic vessels that have seen countless images appear, still submerged, only to pass through to be fixed on paper and into the collective cultural mind. Big stuff, small trays, lovely collection.