—Arshia Simkin, The Underline
Phyllis B. Dooney, a visual storyteller, who has worked in photography, film, and audio is the founder of PHOTO FARM—a new, collaborative photography studio in Chapel Hill. As one might expect, the studio itself is picture worthy: the clean, modern lines and cream-colored shiplap of the building are set off by the green of the trees that surround it.
I recently chatted with Dooney and Rachel Jessen—a photojournalist and documentarian and the coordinator of operations and outreach for PHOTO FARM—about their September 14 grand opening, upcoming offerings, and vision for the future. (Dooney and Jessen met in 2016 when they both attended Duke’s MFA program in Experimental and Documentary Arts.)
The recent grand opening started with group Tai chi: “It was special and it felt good to kind of just have people be present and activate the space for the first time ever,” Dooney said. For Dooney, the mindfulness of the practice is analogous to what the darkroom can provide: both encourage people to briefly put away their phones. Jessen added, “Around the Triangle broadly—there is this very loosely connected photo community, so it was nice for that [community] to become a little tighter.”
As discussed in more detail below, PHOTO FARM will offer workshops in darkroom basics and more advanced techniques. On Saturday, September 28, they will host a workshop called “Phytograms” which will allow students to create film art using local plants and herbs and which will include a walk through the woods and an herbal tea tasting.
For those who are interested, but have no experience in the photographic arts, Dooney noted that most people have some exposure to photography due to the proliferation of social media: “It’s kind of like cooking, you know—everybody’s a cook to some extent. It’s just—how deep do you want to go? All the different avenues and ways to interact with photography can be so fascinating.” She emphasized that you can start simply—to continue the analogy—“all you need is a knife and fork,” she concluded.
Learn more about PHOTO FARM in this email Q&A with Dooney.
What is PHOTO FARM? PHOTO FARM is a site of possibility. At its core, it is a makers space. We hope to bring people together to share ideas and skills.
What inspired you to launch PHOTO FARM? PHOTO FARM has been brewing in my head for decades. It started with my own desire to have space. I spent most of my life in New York City and we, artists, were always craving space. Space to experiment. To build a darkroom, for example. To accommodate a photo studio. To tinker, play, fail and discover. After I moved to North Carolina, the idea blossomed: why not include other people? I’ve been working professionally in photography — from the commercial world as a photo art director to the editorial world as a freelance photographer — for my entire adult life. Photography can be both individualistic and collaborative. I believe in a healthy balance of both.
Can you talk a little about the workshops you all offer? This [f]all we are starting in the darkroom; from the basics (b+w film development and printing) to the experimental in16mm PHYTOGRAMS to the historic Wet Plate Collodion process. Towards the end of the season we will be offering Bookmaking: bookbinding techniques and an Editing + Sequencing workshop. We want to accommodate both the beginning and end of a storytelling project.
What is your vision for the studio? What do you think sets it apart from other workspaces? What sets it apart is its location, the forest, which in turn becomes a great metaphor [for] its vision — to stay nimble, open and ever-changing. We also are developing a FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM with the goal of having PHOTO FARM’s programming and spaces accessible to a diverse (in race, age, income, and so on) set of creatives. With Southern Documentary Fund as our fiscal sponsor, we can accept 501C3 donations, so that, eventually, our workshops and rentals can be offered through a sliding scale structure of fees.
Why Chapel Hill? There’s a robust tradition and community of photographers and filmmakers in the region.
What sort of collaborations or projects are you looking forward to implementing in the future? We hope to become the go-to studio for portraiture in a project called STUDIO 722. We want to create an archive of the people of the Piedmont, and those passing through, over time. An archive that will reflect the many faces of this rich and varied area. In this way, we want to resurrect the tradition of the local photo studio that eventually becomes an essential historical reflection on a time and place.
Learn more about PHOTO FARM at photofarmnc.com and on Instagram @photofarmnc
