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Wall chart shows darkroom, office inhabitants
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Five years ago, when Daniel Mozes converted a Tribeca loft into darkrooms, offices, and a photo studio, he knew he'd be able to find photographers to fill the space. What he couldn't have known, though, was that his Photo Co-op would become a hub for a new community of artists nestled within a growing photo district.
A photographer himself, Mozes at first just wanted to build a group of darkrooms to rent out at a reasonable rate to other photographers. He'd built private darkrooms before -- in Williamsburg and Chelsea -- and knew how hard it could be to find a space that could be properly ventilated for the chemical processes required to develop film. "If it's difficult for me, it must be difficult for other people," he thought at the time.
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| Doors along this hallway open to shared darkrooms |
In 1999, he found the space he was looking for: a 4,000-square-foot, third-floor loft at 381 Broadway (between White and Walker Streets). But his original plan, to divide the old garment factory in 20 darkrooms, was scrapped when he saw the building's front windows. "The idea of making a darkroom next to eight-foot-high windows seemed criminal," Mozes says. Instead, he opted to build 12 darkrooms and to take advantage of the natural light by building six offices and a photo studio in the window-facing spaces of the loft.
Some photographers rented a workspace even before the renovation was complete, scrawling their names with Sharpies across the floor when nothing but metal studs and girders marked the darkrooms that were to be built. After a complete overhaul of the space (although there are still marks on the ceiling where sewing machines were once plugged in), the Photo Co-op opened in January 2000.
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| Daniel Mozes's darkroom |
Since then, photographers both amateur and professional have called the Photo Co-op home. More than half of those who signed on in the beginning are still there today. Others have come and gone. At any given time, as many as 30 photographers are working in the space. Some darkrooms are rented out individually -- others are shared between three people. Darkrooms rental rates are $475 month. The darkrooms are "light tight" and each is outfitted with a sink, counter, and proper professional ventilation. Photographers provide their own equipment.
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| Photo Co-op studio space, rented by the day |
The offices, too, are regularly filled, often by digital photographers manipulating images on glowing computer screens. And the studio space is rented by the day. "It's cheap," Mozes says. Access to the 650-square-foot studio for a full 24-hour period costs just $250. (Rates at studios elsewhere in the neighborhood and in Chelsea can often be more than double that, not including hourly overtime charges applied after nine hours.) Even on a cloudy March afternoon, the studio's wall of windows provides lots of daylight. And for photographers who need more light, professional lighting -- along with background paper, C-stands, and auto poles -- is provided at no extra charge.
As more photographers go digital, Mozes's decision to provide office space has proven prescient. "I could convert additional darkrooms to digital if that seems the way to go," he says. But just as painting didn't disappear when photography emerged, he doubts that film photography is ever going to go away. "Right now, if I had twice as many darkrooms I would fill them."
A Photo District to Rival Chelsea?
Mozes acknowledges that leaving the established photography district in the west 20s (where his last darkroom was located) for Tribeca was risky. But it's a risk that's paid off. Two years ago, K&M Tribeca, a professional photography store, opened next door, at 385 Broadway. "They are betting on the same idea -- that this is going to become a photo district," Mozes says.
In fact, K&M made the decision to move to Tribeca because the area is already a photo district, according to owner Ross Kasovitz. "We opened because we knew a lot of other photographers were already down here," he says, rattling off several big names in the photography world who have nearby studios. "Cindy Sherman. James Nachtwey. A lot of fashion guys down here, too," he says. And that makes sense, he explains: "There are only two places you can put a photo studio -- in a place with daylight exposure or tall ceilings. And only two neighborhoods are like that -- Chelsea and down here."
Kasovitz pushed to open a downtown store for three years -- to complement K&M's original store on East 23rd Street. In the end, it was incentives created to attract businesses downtown after 9/11 that helped seal the deal. K&M Tribeca opened in May 2002. For a while after they opened, there were concerns about the area's recovery, Kasovitz says, but today, signs of a turnaround can be seen everywhere.
"We know that that there's a lot of photography down here because we rent a lot of equipment," says Kasovitz, who estimates that there are now between 20 and 40 photography studios within a one-block radius. "We are delivering equipment to these lofts on a daily basis." In addition to selling camera equipment and supplies and running photo processing labs, K&M Tribeca rents high-end cameras and lighting gear. Rentals have increased tenfold since the store opened two years ago.
For Mozes and the photographers who rent space from him, K&M's arrival has been a godsend. "When you need anything, you just run downstairs," he says. "It's like going to the neighbor to get a cup of sugar."
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| First dance, photo by Alan Klein |
Alan Klein, who rents one of the six offices at the Photo Co-op, agrees. "They weren't here when I first came, but I have to say it's been fantastic." Klein, who uses both digital and traditional film equipment, runs a full-time commercial photography operation -- shooting portraits, parties, weddings, and corporate events. Having K&M downstairs is especially important when he gets a last-minute assignment. "All I have to do is run downstairs on my way to the shoot," he says. "I have never had that kind of convenience before."
A Co-op in the True Sense of the Word
But for as great a neighbor as the store has proven to be, the fellow Photo Co-op'ers are even better, Klein says. At first he had some reservations about moving into the space, having heard stories about photographers in similar co-ops stealing clients from one another. "But that's the furthest thing from the reality here," he says.
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| Trumpeter, photo by Alan Klein |
In fact, he sometimes finds himself giving work away to neighboring photographers. "I don't do babies, actors and actresses, architectural work -- and there are photographers here who do, so I'll refer them. My feeling is that it all comes back to you -- it's a karmic kind of thing."
He'll also hire neighboring photographers to assist on challenging shoots. He's worked with Jody Ake, a photographer who rents a darkroom around the corner and down the hall, on several occasions. "Jody is a fantastic photo assistant and when I have a tough assignment, I always try to hire him because I know what he's capable of."
Finding that the Photo Co-op is a true co-op has been a pleasant surprise for Klein. But for Roberta Raeburn, who occupies the office and darkroom space immediately adjacent to Klein's, that's was what drew her in the first place. "Being a child of the 60s, I thought, 'Oh great! A co-op! We can buy our chemicals together, our cheddar cheese…,'" she says. With that in mind, she visited the raw space when it was still undergoing renovation and signed up immediately. "It just felt really good," she says.
In fact, there's not as much sharing of chemicals or cheddar cheese as Raeburn anticipated. What is shared, though, is knowledge. "The knowledge level here is tremendous," says Raeburn, who is older than most of the photographers there and has been in the darkroom longer than some of them have been alive. "There is always someone to talk to about work -- always advice to get from someone who knows more than you."
Although she's also a photographer, Raeburn spends the bulk of her time doing darkroom work -- developing fine black-and-white prints for others. Klein, who doesn't do any darkroom work, turns to Raeburn to develop his prints whenever he shoots in black and white. And Raeburn turns to Klein for computer help. "With computers I've had to learn as the industry has changed -- more Macintosh, Photoshop," she says. "I have friends here who are very generous with their knowledge." The two friends also share a fax machine, and when Klein sends things out by messenger, he'll always check with Raeburn to see if she might have something headed in the same direction.
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| Portrait by Jody Ake, using collodium photographic process |
This collaborative atmosphere has even helped some photographers change the way they work. Ake, the photographer Klein sometimes hires, has a fine arts background and specializes in creating collodium prints on glass plates using a photographic process -- and camera -- dating back to the mid 1800s. But, he says, "Coming here allowed me to see other people working and helped open my eyes to the world of commercial work." Thanks to advice he's received from Klein and other commercial photographers, that work now makes up 90 percent of what Ake does, up from zero before he came to the Co-op.
And just as Ake has turned to his neighbors for advice and guidance, so too has he supplied it to others. About a year and a half ago, when Mozes began to explore color developing for the first time -- having worked exclusively in black and white before that -- he tried an inexpensive but intricate process that involved placing paper into plastic tubes with chemicals and water and required careful regulation to avoid streaks and marks on finished prints.
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| Cityscape by Jody Ake, using collodium photographic process |
"Danny was doing color in tubes, which is like purgatory," Ake remembers. And so he helped introduce Mozes to alternate ways of doing color correction. "I learned about all the different options available to a person without having to do it all myself," Mozes recalls.
Frequently, though, the advice shared between Photo Co-op photographers is of a much simpler sort. "Let's say I have the same printer as someone else," Klein says. "I'll ask, 'What settings did you use to make that print?'"
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| Daniel Mozes, photo by Jody Ake |
Says Mozes: "Sometimes you bring a print out into the daylight and someone says, 'You know, you really need to burn in that corner,' or, 'It's a little too green,' or just, 'That's the one I really like.' These are people with an educated eye who can say why they like what they like."
For Raeburn, it's a combination of colleagues she can learn from, a darkroom space that allows her to get lots of work done in a day, and a fantastic photography store just downstairs that makes her want to stay at the Photo Co-op. "I have not even ever entertained the idea of leaving here for any reason."
If you are a photographer interested in renting studio, office, or darkroom space at the Photo Co-op, please call Daniel Mozes at (212) 966-9177 or visit the Photo Co-op's website. To learn more about Alan Klein's commercial photography work, please visit www.alanklein.com. To learn more about Roberta Raeburn's black-and-white printing services and custom film developing, please visit www.fotografianyc.com. To learn more about Jody Ake's work using collodium print photographic processes, please email Jodya@mindspring.com.
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