Building on Analogue Culture in Sheffield

Sheffield doesn’t really have a thriving analogue photography scene.

It has a handful of people who care about analogue deeply.

At the moment, analogue photography in the city exists because individuals choose to keep it visible. Small groups running workshops. Independent spaces opening their doors. Enthusiasts sharing knowledge. Teachers passing on skills. People who believe that making images in this way still matters.

That kind of culture is fragile.

When something relies on a small number of motivated individuals, it either grows through collaboration or shrinks through exhaustion.

If it feels exclusive, it narrows.
If it feels nostalgic, it stalls.
If it feels competitive, it fragments.

What we’ve seen over the last year is something else beginning to form.

Parents bringing their children into darkrooms for the first time. Teachers rediscovering their craft outside of home and work. Young photographers choosing analogue deliberately, not because it is fashionable but because it feels real.

It doesn’t look like a scene yet. But it does look like momentum.

Sheffield is a city that understands material. Steel. Tools. Making. Repair. Process has always mattered here. Analogue photography sits comfortably in that lineage - not as aesthetic preference, but as physical practice.

But momentum needs direction.

A teacher friend recently told us she regains her pupils’ attention by switching the classroom monitor on and off again. That flicker makes them look up and allows her to begin talking.

Let that sink in. That’s where we are.

A darkroom works differently. There is no competing screen. No secondary glow. You either engage with the process or you don’t. The space itself demands attention.

That’s why we think darkrooms belong back in schools and young people belong in the darkroom - not as nostalgia, but as infrastructure for focus.

Fast forward three years and success wouldn’t look like a trend. It would look like continuity: regular walks, shared exhibitions, analogue education returning to schools amid larger gatherings that bring people together from all walks of life and across different spaces. A city-wide analogue festival perhaps?

None of that happens in isolation.

Analogue culture grows when the doors are open. When knowledge is shared and when spaces collaborate rather than compete.

The infrastructure is here in early form. What comes next depends on whether we’re willing to build something collective - something visible - something that outlasts any one person or room.

Notes from the Darkroom is an ongoing record of analogue practice and community.