Bristol Community Darkrooms

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Bristol Community Darkrooms A public access darkroom in the centre of Bristol. Open 7 days a week, available for group or individual bookings. Run a photography course?

St Paul’s Darkrooms is a public access darkroom open 7 days a week, located at St Pauls Learning Centre, Grosvenor Rd, Bristol. This purpose-built spacious and well equipped darkrooms was established in 2005 when the Watershed relocated its darkroom equipment and helped set up this excellent photographic resource. Darkroom Facilities:

4 black and white enlargers; from 35mm to 4x5”
6 colour enlargers; from 35 to medium format
Floor standing enlarger height adjustable for wheelchair users
Black & white printing by hand using trays
Easy to use Durst Printo processor for colour printing
Separate black & white and colour darkrooms
Black & white film development area
Print drying and finishing room

Covid-Safe Inductions:

All Darkroom users must attend a short Covid-Safe Induction before booking Darkroom Sessions. These are for those returning to the Darkrooms as well as new users to ensure you stay as safe as possible at the Darkrooms. Inductions take place twice weekly, free of charge, and can be booked via this page. Darkroom Use:

Individual Darkroom Bookings:
Members - £10 per 3 hour session
Non-members £15 per 3 hour session
Booked through St Pauls Learning Centre
Tel 0117 914 5470
email [email protected]
We are only allowing one booking at a time to ensure social distancing, or two if from the same household. Membership:

Membership is £40 per year - Application forms and payment systems are moving online to minimise paperwork. We apologise that new memberships are not currently available until this process is complete. Do you want to get a group of people into the darkroom? Set up a photography project? St Pauls Darkrooms are ideal for group work led by experienced photographers or tutors, and will provide all the equipment you need. The darkrooms are available for group projects and / or courses, for professional photographers, teachers, trainers, schools, colleges, and youth projects. Your group or organisation can book the entire darkroom facility exclusively for your own course or project on a regular or one-off basis. Rates and fees are reasonable and negotiable to suit every budget. See www.realphotographycompany.co.uk for details

Our last post for the takeover, with some examples of work done by us and our members. Quite a range of styles and techn...
30/07/2026

Our last post for the takeover, with some examples of work done by us and our members. Quite a range of styles and techniques.

We also produce Zines featuring work of our members.

Hope you've enjoyed our posts, and if you ever find yourself in Leicester on a Wednesday evening with nothing to do, drop by and say 'hi'

Thanks

Daryl (Leicester Lo-Fi Photography)

Leicester Lo-Fi, workshops and events.Over the last 16 years we've ran hundreds of workshops and events, ranging from cy...
30/07/2026

Leicester Lo-Fi, workshops and events.

Over the last 16 years we've ran hundreds of workshops and events, ranging from cyanotypes, wet plate, large format, holography, colour printing, zine making, watergrams, book binding, Kamra-e-faoree (Afghan box camera), pinhole, mordencage, Polaroid lifts, bromoil, hand coloured photographs, photowalks, trips and visits (including Lacock Abbey), we also have film nights and presentations once a month. That's just off the top of my head. We also organise and put on exhibitions of members work, our largest being our 10 year anniversary show, where we had a huge exhibition space showcasing work produced over the years.

Hi, we're Leicester Lo-Fi Photography, and we've been asked to take over St Paul's Darkroom Instagram feed for the dayAB...
30/07/2026

Hi, we're Leicester Lo-Fi Photography, and we've been asked to take over St Paul's Darkroom Instagram feed for the day

ABOUT US
We're a community darkroom based in the centre of Leicester (in the basement of a church). We've been going since 2011. Our facilities include a large workshop space, a black and white darkroom with 12 enlargers, capable of printing from negatives up to 5x4, film processing for all types and formats of film and cinifilm, including deep tank processing, an extensive library, a shop, equipment loans, a studio lighting set up and an exhibition space, both in the studio and in the actual church above us. We have also just started to test out a small colour darkroom set up.

More on our workshops to come.....

📣Listen up everyone! 📣Become a member of Bristol Community Darkroom this summer and get £5 off for the first free months...
16/07/2026

📣Listen up everyone! 📣

Become a member of Bristol Community Darkroom this summer and get £5 off for the first free months!

Membership gives you unlimited access to use our facilities and chemistry. Go to our website now to join! 😉

It’s Monday, and you know what that means…BCD member’s highlight time ✨Hi everyone! I’m Rosie, an active member and dire...
13/07/2026

It’s Monday, and you know what that means…BCD member’s highlight time ✨

Hi everyone! I’m Rosie, an active member and director at Bristol Community Darkroom. I look after our social media, and from this autumn I’ll also be running a selection of darkroom courses. I’m looking forward to sharing more with you and seeing some of you in the darkroom soon!

At the moment, I’m working on a series of experimental collages using the Mordançage technique. I photographed three of my wonderful friends - POLLYANNA✨ , 🕯️inna realm🕯️ and amyfernphotography -and I’m now in the final stages of bringing the project together. My goal is to finish it by the end of this week before I head to the Experimental Photo Festival + Agora Online School in Barcelona, where I’m hoping to share the project, talk about the work, and connect with fellow artists and photographers.

If you’d like to follow along with what I’m making, you can find me at Karin Rosie Viilup and ＲＯＳＩＥ. Give me a message if you have any questions or you want to connect! ☺️🖤

Hello folks! This is Fotohane DARKROOM team📸🎞️. In our workshops, children are given analog cameras and learn how to tak...
01/07/2026

Hello folks! This is Fotohane DARKROOM team📸🎞️. In our workshops, children are given analog cameras and learn how to take photographs, develop film, and print their own images. We support their autonomy by prioritizing hands-on learning and embracing a “do, don’t tell” approach. Our workshops are exploratory in nature, encouraging children to learn from one another through collaboration, curiosity, and personal experimentation. photo by Yasin Akgul for

Hello dear folks! The Fotohane DARKROOM team is here! We’ve brought a selection of photographs taken by children, captur...
29/06/2026

Hello dear folks! The Fotohane DARKROOM team is here! We’ve brought a selection of photographs taken by children, capturing the world from their own perspective. “Fotohane” means “House of Photo” in Persian, Kurdish, Turkish, and Arabic. The name was chosen by the children themselves. 📸❤️

This Monday, we are posting the work of Sandy Connell who has been working on something big and exciting in our darkroom...
29/06/2026

This Monday, we are posting the work of Sandy Connell who has been working on something big and exciting in our darkroom. Read more about it down below👇🏻

Welcome! My name is Sandy and I’m a photographer based in London, travelling to Bristol often and making the most of my time in the community darkrooms when I’m there. The six images you see here are all from scans of prints made in the community darkroom for a project that I will be exhibiting in London this coming weekend (4th + 5th July  ). The project that ties these disparate images together is called TELEFOTON, a game of Telephone (aka: Broken Telephone or Chinese Whispers) which is played visually by finding visible rhymes, compliments and contrasts in photos from the archives of three different photographers. The project has been the basis of the first self-published photo book that I have worked on and it has been a pleasure to have photographic prints as the basis for the reproductions in the book.

When I reach the darkroom, I have already lived with my images for so long and I am keen to find their graphical potential – what can we do in the darkroom to take them beyond photographs and add a designer’s touch to them?

25/06/2026

Hello! This is the team taking over the account this week.

Fotohane DARKROOM is a free analog photography project for children in Mardin, Turkey, near the Turkish–Syrian–Iraqi border. Through our workshops, children learn how to take photographs, develop their own film, and print their images in our darkroom.

More coming soon !!!??! follow us and share our work! 📸❤️🎞️

This video by amazing .ionut for about Fotohane DARKROOM.

23/06/2026

Here is another 60sec video with one of our new Darkroom Directors- Ashutosh Shaktan 💙

Ashutosh is a photo-based artist, editor, bookmaker and an educator.

Learn more about him by watching this reel and by visiting his instagram account .

Address

94 Grosvenor Road, St Pauls
Bristol
BS28XJ

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 9pm
Tuesday 9am - 9pm
Wednesday 9am - 9pm
Thursday 9am - 9pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 10am - 3:30pm

Telephone

0117 914 5470

Website

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