The Handmade Darkroom: Te Whanganui-a-Tara Sustainable Photography Collective was co-founded by Samson Dell and Belinda Whitta in 2023, when the collective was publicly launched after months of dreaming! They have since created and facilitated many workshops, including a series of four workshops for the Women in Photography NZ + AU exhibition Susurrations, a cyanotype demonstration for Newtown Fest 2023, and Te Papa’s After Dark in March 2024, as well as their recent self-organised winter workshops in June/July of 2024.
Since 2023, The Handmade Darkroom have regularly collaborated with Women in Photography NZ + AU to facilitate monthly meet-ups for their local photographic community. These meet-ups have formed a rich sense of community and the perfect environment for collaboration. In August of 2024 we self-published the community-collaborative photobook titled whispering bird song.
The collective now facilitates a Patreon account, bringing monthly content to their supporters in return for financial support that enables the sustainability of the collective, the facilitators time and capacity to create new and meaningful content each month. There are two tiers that offer different levels of engagement, from practical resources to richer, more poetic prompts to go inward.
