Fine-art photography — large format · long exposure

T.T.T.

I photograph the places people leave — empty stations, drained pools, shuttered cinemas, the last light on a closed road. Everything is shot on 4×5 film, developed by hand, printed in a darkroom that still smells of fixer.

scroll — the two halves move against each other

The Empty Hours

2016–2018 · 4×5 film · 12 prints

An empty railway platform at dusk, long exposure
Platform 9, 05:12 — silver gelatin
A drained swimming pool with a single ladder
The Drained Pool, 2017 — silver gelatin
A forest road at first light, empty
Road to Nowhere, 2018 — silver gelatin

I spent two winters photographing the hours when a city refuses to be seen. Each frame is a twenty-minute exposure; the people who should be there are reduced to the faintest ghost or erased entirely. What remains is the architecture of waiting.

Concrete Tides

2019–2021 · 8×10 film · 9 prints

A brutalist concrete seawall against a flat sea
Seawall, 2020 — platinum print
An empty beach at low tide with a concrete breakwater
Breakwater, 2021 — platinum print
A concrete pier stretching into fog
Pier in Fog, 2021 — platinum print

A study of the places where concrete meets water and neither wins. Shot on 8×10 and printed in platinum for the range of greys — the sea here is never black or white, only the long middle between them.

Last Projection

2022 · 35mm · 18 frames

An empty cinema interior with a single lit screen
Orpheum, 2022 — silver gelatin
An abandoned cinema lobby with torn seats
The Lobby, 2022 — silver gelatin
A projection booth window, dark
Booth, 2022 — silver gelatin

A year documenting the last single-screen cinemas of the region before they closed. I shot only the empty houses — the moment after the final credit rolled and the light came up on nobody.

Salt & Static

2023 · 4×5 film · 11 prints

A salt flat stretching to the horizon
White Field, 2023 — silver gelatin
An abandoned radio mast in a flat landscape
Mast, 2023 — silver gelatin
A vast empty plain under a wide sky
The Plain, 2023 — silver gelatin

The salt flats are the closest thing to a blank page I have found. I drove out alone in the dry season and let the wind decide where I stood. Every print is a record of a place that erases itself by morning.

The Quiet Machines

2024–2025 · 4×5 film · in progress

An industrial machine hall, empty and still
Mill Hall, 2024 — silver gelatin
A disused factory interior with shafts of light
Shaft, 2025 — silver gelatin
An empty industrial corridor
Corridor, 2025 — silver gelatin

The machines that once ran a town now sit in silence. I photograph them the way you would photograph a sleeping animal — carefully, from a distance, without waking them.

About

I am T. T. T., a photographer working in monochrome. I was born in a port city that has since been redeveloped twice, and I think that is why I keep returning to the places that are about to disappear — I am trying to get there before the crane does.

I shoot almost exclusively on 4×5 and 8×10 film, developed by hand in a darkroom I built in the back of a former bakery on Meridian Street. The enlarger is a 1974 De Vere that I bought from a closing newspaper and have never once regretted. I print on fibre-based paper, usually Ilford, and tone sparingly — the image should carry the weight, not the chemistry.

My work has been shown in small galleries and larger group shows across the country, and hangs in a few collections I am quietly proud of. I teach a weekend darkroom course in the winter months and take on a limited number of commissions each year.

Currently — finishing The Quiet Machines for a solo show in the autumn, and printing a retrospective of The Empty Hours at a larger scale than I have attempted before.

Contact

Studio — 214 Meridian Street, the old bakery, up the metal stairs at the back. Open by appointment, most afternoons.

For prints, commissions, or to visit the darkroom, write to me here: