Nothing like reviewing the notes of a laboratory technician and brands with the different areas of a copy to remember that the photographs edition also exists in the chemical world and was invented long before Photoshop.
Although the copyist’s work rarely occupies headlines, if we talk about Magnum and some of the most iconic images of the last decades the name of Pablo Inirio deserves a prominent place. A video recently posted by the agency allows you to discover how Inirio works in the dark room where the paper copies of some of the most recognized photographers and photographers in the world are made.
As he explains, he has been working in Magnum since 1992 and for his expansion and revelation buckets have passed the images of Inge Moath, Bruce Gildem, Leonard Freed or Burt Glinn, among many others.
In really interesting to see him work, with a combination between technique and experience – it is chemical, but there is also something magical in the development, he tells himself – that allows a high level of perfectionism when extracting all the details of each photo and turning it into a unique copy where also, in a way, there is a part of his vision.
To such an extent this work is important that Magnum has put on sale a series of paper copies of laboratory tests with Inirio’s notes on areas that need more or less exposure time when making the final copy.
A artisanally complex process in which the simple “covered” that anyone who has practiced in the laboratory will have ever carried out, becomes here an art to adjust lights and shadows according to the author’s gaze. And of the copyist.
