The Lost Student Negative Box (35)

The Lost Student Negative Box (34)

The Lost Student Negative Box (33)

The Lost Student Negative Box (32)

The Lost Student Negative Box (31)

The Lost Student Negative Box (30)

The Lost Student Negative Box (29)

The Lost Student Negative Box (28)

The Lost Student Negative Box (27)

The Lost Student Negative Box (26)

The Lost Student Negative Box (25)

The Lost Student Negative Box (24)

The Lost Student Negative Box (23)

The Lost Student Negative Box (22)

The Lost Student Negative Box (21)

The Lost Student Negative Box (20)

The Lost Student Negative Box (19) Watch the Doorway

The Lost Student Negative Box (18)

The Lost Student Negative Box (17)

The Lost Student Negative Box (16)

The Lost Student Negative Box (15)

The Lost Student Negative Box (14)

The Lost Student Negative Box (13)

The Lost Student Negative Box (12)

The Lost Student Negative Box (11)

The Lost Student Negative Box (10)

The Lost Student Negative Box (9)

The Lost Student Negative Box (8)

The Lost Student Negative Box (7)

The Lost Student Negative Box (6)

The Lost Student Negative Box (5)

The Student Lost Negative Box (4)

The Lost Student Negative Box (3)

The Lost Student Negative Box (2)

The Lost Student Negative Box (1)

This anonymous photograph comes from an on-going archive of some 4,000 lost student negatives, exhumed by Greg Lucas (at regular intervals since 1988), from the ‘Lost Student Negative Box’ (a depository, created and managed by the darkroom technician), situated in the vicinity of the darkrooms at De Montfort University, Leicester.

The images were all made by students studying Photography – as a response to Photography briefs, then, abandoned (after a satisfactory print had been achieved, or as failures?) in the darkroom  – left in the enlarger, found on the floor. At the end of each term, Lucas (a lecturer in the department) exhumed the abandoned negatives  – the skeletons of prints – from their coffin-like box.

The Photograph and the Collection

We (Jane Fletcher and I) recently contributed a chapter to the dramatic tome, The Photograph and the Collection. Our contribution is a meditation on what students lose or throw away: "Lost in Camera - The Lost Student Negative Box".

Found (Lost) Pinnacle

This 'found' pinnacle recently found its way into (ed) G Farnell, 2013, The Photograph and the Collection, Edinburgh: MuseumsEtc. See next blog; a dramatic tome-trailer.

Pinnacle Picture (4)

Pinnacle Picture (3)

Pinnacle Picture (2)

Pinnacle Picture (1)

Crowhurst Twinned with Montserrat

Whenever I stand on my head (on a grave) in Crowhurst grave yard and look at the spiky little bit of sky, framed between the church tower and the branches of the famous old yew tree, I see the rock towers, high above the monastery, in Monsterrat.