Artist Bio

German citizen, born in South Africa, launched in Canada.

I have been obsessed with photography since first discovering a crate of photographic equipment my father kept in our suburban Canadian home.

Vast boundless expanses of white snow fields bordered by the Rocky Mountains gave me my first impulse to document the surreal and somewhat abstract landscapes.

Subsequently the process of developing and printing the work led me to the darkroom and all its magic potential.

Choosing a career in photography was easy, I have worked in fashion, portraiture, architectural and décor photography.

The emergence of digital technology removed the physical visceral component of my photography and quite literally you could "have shot it on an iPhone"

A rather prophetic encounter with an associate/dear friend who had become obsessed with analogue photography, and I was led back to the work and back to the magic world of the darkroom where I now reside.

François Dischinger

Notes on the Work

I am steeped in all aspects of photography, developed by years of play, dreams, experimentation and practice, refining and building on traditions through explorations in colour, shape, line, light and chemistry.

In challenging and transforming the notions and conceptions of what value abstract photography has, I rediscovered old darkroom techniques and experiments associated with Man Ray and Gottfried Jäeger.

Eschewing all computer and digital processes, I work in an analogue darkroom using only the traditional tools and techniques developed during the medium’s inception. These include the use of static electricity, silhouettes, and colored gels, all employed to produce sweeping lines, blushes, and globules of colour; finally alighting themselves on photo sensitive silver paper.

The work is produced using traditional photographic dark room materials such as light sensitive paper, modified enlargers, graphic screens, chemistry and various actions all employed in a completely dark studio.

Literally, working on the surface of the photographic paper the intervening "light measures" generate a mark.. a line, a shadow or blur, the resulting compositions on the photographic paper are then processed in chemistry while subtle interventions on temperature and timing result in a unique work.

François Dischinger

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